NEW ALBUMS (released within last month/30 days) Worth a Listen

mosstin

This is beautiful. Perfectly autumnal sounding.

seachto7

NapoleonInRags wrote: »

Jesus but the War on Drugs album is fantastic - gets better and better with every listen. Phenomenal production and great songs which are unconventional yet familiar.

Plus this has to be one of the best album reviews I've ever read.....long but well worth the read imo.

https://www.stereogum.com/1958113/premature-evaluation-the-war-on-drugs-a-deeper-understanding/franchises/premature-evaluation/

I like it, but it sounds the same as the last one, and the previous one. Still good though.

seachto7

New Balmorhea is worth a listen, if a bit experimental. Same with the new Lee Ranaldo album.
Also, Noel Hogan of Cranberries fame, has released a new Mono Band EP.

dirkmeister

Otherkin released their debut today.


It's excellent.

Gonzovision

New Vessels and For Tet today. Four Tets best release since TILIY in my opinion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsPfafTZys4

Basq

New Wolf Alice album out today too.. getting very good reviews too!

S.M.B.

I'm really enjoying the new Godspeed You Black Emperor!

Irish_rat

Basq wrote: »

New Wolf Alice album out today too.. getting very good reviews too!

Very enjoyable I must say.

mosstin

S.M.B. wrote: »

I'm really enjoying the new Godspeed You Black Emperor!

Bosses Hang is an immense song.

dirkmeister

Basq wrote: »

New Wolf Alice album out today too.. getting very good reviews too!

Only got to listen to the first half, it sounds very good.

mosstin

Gonzovision wrote: »

New Vessels and For Tet today. Four Tets best release since TILIY in my opinion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsPfafTZys4

Sounds promising for sure. He sold a few hundred of the new album - vinyl - through Oxfam. Supporting a great cause and buying great music - win/win.

Ekels

Some month for post-rock was September. As a few have mentioned, Vessels, Balmorhea and Mogwai with albums. Mogwai's album is very good without re-inventing the wheel or bettering CODY or Happy Songs (or whatever anyone else considers their best), in my opinion. Balmorhea album is brilliant. They do a track-by-track here for anyone interested: http://drownedinsound.com/in_depth/4151364-balmorheas-track-by-track-guide-to-clear-language

seachto7

Ekels wrote: »

Some month for post-rock was September. As a few have mentioned, Vessels, Balmorhea and Mogwai with albums. Mogwai's album is very good without re-inventing the wheel or bettering CODY or Happy Songs (or whatever anyone else considers their best), in my opinion. Balmorhea album is brilliant. They do a track-by-track here for anyone interested: http://drownedinsound.com/in_depth/4151364-balmorheas-track-by-track-guide-to-clear-language

It is indeed a real grower. I have it on Spotify but would shell out for a record or CD to support them. Vessels I must check.

UrbanSprawl

Can scarcely be anyone with any interest in the Irish indie\alt music scene not aware of Otherkin and their cracking debut album 'OK'.
Definitely one of my top albums Irish or otherwise of the year to date.
Oh and if you are thinking of buying the album do it TODAY, they are very close to having the best selling album of the week.

http://www.thewarnermusicshop.com/artist/otherkin

UrbanSprawl

New entry at No 2 great achievement for the guys and well deserved,cannot wait for the December gig,will be mayhem.

LW TW Title Artist Label WOC
1 1 PICTURE THIS PICTURE THIS WARNER MUSIC IRELAND 6
NEW 2 OK OTHERKIN RUBYWORKS 1
3 3 DIVIDE ED SHEERAN ASYLUM 31
NEW 4 NOW SHANIA TWAIN EMI 1
NEW 5 YOUNGER NOW MILEY CYRUS RCA 1
5 6 FREEDOM CHILD SCRIPT COLUMBIA 5

Anesthetize

The Horrors - V

On their previous album Luminous it sounded like they lobbed in synths because they ran out of ideas. On their new album they use them with purpose and have some great songs to back it up. That album cover is still awful though.

Claude Wilton

The new Waterboys album, Out of all this Blue, is a beauty.

sumsar

Claude Wilton wrote: »

The new Waterboys album, Out of all this Blue, is a beauty.

Really liked payo payo chin.. didn't know the album was out, checking it now.

BonnieSituation

Anesthetize wrote: »

The Horrors - V

On their previous album Luminous it sounded like they lobbed in synths because they ran out of ideas. On their new album they use them with purpose and have some great songs to back it up. That album cover is still awful though.

I'm loving it. Never really got into Luminous and that's saying something considering Primary Colours and Skying are two of my favourite albums of all time.

Roll on next Tuesday.

mosstin

Right, well the new St. Vincent album is brilliant.

Kerrigooney

The Courtney Barnett & Kurt Vile album is well worth a listen. Gonna be playing it all weekend I think.

sweetie

Seamus Fogarty's album is getting good reviews, looking fwd to a listen or three

Birneybau

New Beck album worth a listen, sounds like Phoenix as backing band on some songs.

Also, big Horrors fan, thought there were some great songs on Luminous. And, as stated, roll on Tuesday!

loyatemu

not sure about the Beck album, it's very produced and commercial by his standards - almost sounds like him singing someone else's songs.

sweetie

loyatemu wrote:

not sure about the Beck album, it's very produced and commercial by his standards - almost sounds like him singing someone else's songs.

Yeah Beck by numbers (or colors)

UrbanSprawl

The latest and third album from The World Is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die is absolutely superb, their best yet.

https://theworldis.bandcamp.com/album/always-foreign

sweetie

New album by Michael head and the red elastic band is lovely. He was in Shack, Pale fountains and did this album years ago which made me a fan for life.

loyatemu

sweetie wrote: »

New album by Michael head and the red elastic band is lovely. He was in Shack, Pale fountains and did this album years ago which made me a fan for life.

cheers - didn't know about that. As you say, "The Magical World of the Strands" is a wonderful record.

mosstin

sweetie wrote: »

New album by Michael head and the red elastic band is lovely. He was in Shack, Pale fountains and did this album years ago which made me a fan for life.

HMS Fable by Shack was a beautiful record. Great songwriter.

BonnieSituation

Technically released 33 days ago. But I have fallen in love with Hannah Peel's "Mary Casio: Journey to Cassiopeia".

"Archid Orange Dwarf" is a stunner. I think the last time I was stopped in my tracks like this was when I heard "Peach Plum Pear" by Joanna Newsom upstairs in Tower way back when. been on repeat all night. Plays Belfast on December 2nd. I'll unfortunately be in Manchester at Sasha/Digweed. Couldn't be further in styles from each other!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VzoUJ-8_u0

Arghus

Fever Ray's new album Plunge is released tonight/tomorrow. Great unexpected news.

Hopefully it'll be a worthy successor to the last one.

S.M.B.

The first single was solid if not spectacular. Felt a bit more The Knife like than Fever Ray.

Ekels

UrbanSprawl wrote: »

The latest and third album from The World Is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die is absolutely superb, their best yet.

https://theworldis.bandcamp.com/album/always-foreign

Agree wholeheartedly. There's a folk twist on a lot of tracks which I'm liking.

Other than this, the other two recent-ish releases I have on heavy rotation the past few weeks are:

And So I Watch You From Afar- The Endless Shimmering. Not much to say about this. It's not much different to their previous releases, it's just ASIWYFA being awesome.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jho0Jm_ITWA

Knuckle Puck- Shapeshifter. Best pop-punk/post-hardcore album of the year for me. Can't get enough of it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQnm53glX5Q

UrbanSprawl

I suspect the mogawi and ASIYFA albums are likely wysiwyg to borrow an acronym from computer science,not disparaging either but you kinda know what to expect. Seen both of these bands live previously over the years and that's where their true awesomeness is apparent.
In terms of new sounds will be checking out the latter of your links,would also recommend the Brutus album Burst as having
a little bit different sound in a genre that is saturated with bands who sound broadly similar.
Couple of other newly released albums I have being listening to Protomatyr and Wolf Parade both good at times but I don't find myself massively addicted to either.

S.M.B.

Not sure if Indie/Alt is the right place for it and I'm a little late to the party as I only heard about the release recently but score to The Vietnam Way by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross is another stellar effort from the pair.

I really do love their stuff, would love to see them do a few live dates doing their movie score material.

mosstin

Has the Phoebe Bridgers' album been mentioned here yet? If not, it's really worth a listen. Ploughing a well-worn furrow but excellent songwriting.

sweetie

mosstin wrote:

Has the Phoebe Bridgers' album been mentioned here yet? If not, it's really worth a listen. Ploughing a well-worn furrow but excellent songwriting.

Thought it was too old, lovely stuff indeed

sweetie

Interesting album out by Daniele Luppi called Milano, 80s concept album feat Karen O and Parquet courts.

S.M.B.

S.M.B. wrote: »

The first single was solid if not spectacular. Felt a bit more The Knife like than Fever Ray.

Yeah, it definitely feels more like a Knife album than a Fever Ray one. Fever Ray's debut is a contender for my favourite album of all time, so my expectations for Plunge were always going to be too high. It does have some very good moments (the instrumental title track is a highlight) and she should be commended for not releasing a rehash of the debut*, but overall it has left me a little cold. Still, it helps if I think of it as a follow-up to Shaking the Habitual rather than a follow-up to Fever Ray.

(Though I love that album so much I'd still be happy with a second version of it! )

S.M.B.

Agree 100%.

Can't fault her for continuing with what interests her sonically and thematically.

I'd have loved Fever Ray part 2 though.

Arghus

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Yeah, it definitely feels more like a Knife album than a Fever Ray one. Fever Ray's debut is a contender for my favourite album of all time, so my expectations for Plunge were always going to be too high. It does have some very good moments (the instrumental title track is a highlight) and she should be commended for not releasing a rehash of the debut*, but overall it has left me a little cold. Still, it helps if I think of it as a follow-up to Shaking the Habitual rather than a follow-up to Fever Ray.

(Though I love that album so much I'd still be happy with a second version of it! )

Yup, have to concur with what you are saying.

Been listening to it solidly for a week and while it has some good, even great moments - Wanna Sip, the title track, To the moon and back, Red Trails - it isn't anywhere close to the unified experience that the earlier album was. Some of the songwriting and instrumentation is kinda forgettable and I don't think it's going to be one of those that reveal more depth as time goes on. Which is a bit of a pity, because that first album never stopped giving.

So, yeah, good album, but not a great album.

On a side but related note: I'm becoming increasingly jaundiced by review scores for albums these days. I used to base a lot of my decisions about to what to listen to next on things like metacritic scores. Anything that got higher than an aggregate score of around 85 got a listen from me, because scores that high were exceedingly rare - or at least they used to be.

Does anyone else find that new albums by established names, usually in the indie/alternative world, are increasingly overrated and given somewhat generous marks across the board?

Like right now, for instance: Converge, St. Vincent, Brand New, and Fever Ray all have albums with metacritic scores between 88 and 90 - which means critics have been raving about them across the board: really raving. None of these are bad albums - but are they really that good?

mosstin

Arghus wrote: »

Yup, have to concur with what you are saying.

Been listening to it solidly for a week and while it has some good, even great moments - Wanna Sip, the title track, To the moon and back, Red Trails - it isn't anywhere close to the unified experience that the earlier album was. Some of the songwriting and instrumentation is kinda forgettable and I don't think it's going to be one of those that reveal more depth as time goes on. Which is a bit of a pity, because that first album never stopped giving.

So, yeah, good album, but not a great album.

On a side but related note: I'm becoming increasingly jaundiced by review scores for albums these days. I used to base a lot of my decisions about to what to listen to next on things like metacritic scores. Anything that got higher than an aggregate score of around 85 got a listen from me, because scores that high were exceedingly rare - or at least they used to be.

Does anyone else find that new albums by established names, usually in the indie/alternative world, are increasingly overrated and given somewhat generous marks across the board?

Like right now, for instance: Converge, St. Vincent, Brand New, and Fever Ray all have albums with metacritic scores between 88 and 90 - which means critics have been raving about them across the board: really raving. None of these are bad albums - but are they really that good?

St. Vincent's is excellent. Too early for me to judge Fever Ray.

Pighead

They're back! Shed Seven's new album 'Instant Pleasures' out today. Going to listen to it on my way home from work. I'm expecting greatness. One of my favourite bands from my teenage years.

Most of you will probably pretend that you have absolutely zero respect for the Sheds but deep deep deep down you know you love them.

mosstin

Pighead wrote: »

They're back! Shed Seven's new album 'Instant Pleasures' out today. Going to listen to it on my way home from work. I'm expecting greatness. One of my favourite bands from my teenage years.

Most of you will probably pretend that you have absolutely zero respect for the Sheds but deep deep deep down you know you love them.

They were utterly awful then, I expect they're even worse now.

Pighead

mosstin wrote: »

They were utterly awful then, I expect they're even worse now.

:eek: Another Philistine! Chasing Rainbows and Bully Boy are stone cold classics. A Maximum High is an album that deserves to be heard by every single person living today. I pray that you will see the light before you end your days.

sweetie

mosstin wrote:

They were utterly awful then, I expect they're even worse now.

They made Space and Cast look good

Pighead

sweetie wrote: »

They made Space and Cast look good

Another music snob with his head up his backside. Listen pal, Shed 7 know how to write classic indie pop songs with wait for it.....MELODY. MELODY is king! All you indie schmindie try hards boil Pighead's piss. Listening to tuneless hogwash while at the same time throwing out pithy remarks about guys that just want to make Pighead dance. Reassess and come back to me. Space my bollox. Cast my backside. Heroes Speakeasy.

OhHiMark

Pighead wrote: »

Another music snob with his head up his backside. Listen pal, Shed 7 know how to write classic indie pop songs with wait for it.....MELODY. MELODY is king! All you indie schmindie try hards boil Pighead's piss. Listening to tuneless hogwash while at the same time throwing out pithy remarks about guys that just want to make Pighead dance. Reassess and come back to me. Space my bollox. Cast my backside. Heroes Speakeasy.

Oh this is embarrassing. I feel both second and third hand embarrassment for you. They were saying that space and cast are terrible, but this shed 7 are so bad that they make them look good.

Pighead

OhHiMark wrote: »

Oh this is embarrassing. I feel both second and third hand embarrassment for you. They were saying that space and cast are terrible, but this shed 7 are so bad that they make them look good.

I know that you absolute spanner! Where did I suggest otherwise? Shove your second and third hand embarrassment up your jacksie.

lordgoat

Pighead wrote: »

I know that you absolute spanner! Where did I suggest otherwise? Shove your second and third hand embarrassment up your jacksie.

Welcome Pighead. I've missed you about the place. The rest of you, you're amongst royalty here. This guy is one of the best things about boards. Although I never realised his SS fascination.