Eve Adams – Metal Bird CD/LP (Basin Rock)
Combining airy folk with haunting soundscapes, the latest album from California-born artist Eve Adams takes listeners on an auditory voyage from sonorous lullabies, to dreamy ambience, skeletal jazz, 1930s torch songs and 1940s film noir. Metal Bird has a distinct, genuine tone, with orchestral arrangements, ambient hallucinations and high-fidelity vocals that are unafraid to be heard loud and clear. For those who are hopelessly enamored with a by-gone time, there is solace in these songs and sounds. Flickering back and forth between dread and hope, the unrelenting march towards a spiritual transformation and the realization that each of us are driven by our own dreams and as much as we want to hold it in our hands, often it is intangible. The sublime remains elusive, existing somewhere in the heart, and it sounds like Eve Adams knows this best.
Melissa Aldana – 12 Stars LP (Blue Note)
Recently released on CD – now available on vinyl. Grammy-nominated saxophonist and composer Melissa Aldana joins the Blue Note Records family with the release of 12 Stars, her debut album as a leader for the legendary label following her appearance on the acclaimed 2020 album by the collective Artemis. The Brooklyn-based tenor player from Santiago, Chile has garnered international recognition for her visionary work as a band leader, as well as her deeply meditative interpretation of language and vocabulary. 12 Stars grapples with concepts of childrearing, familial forgiveness, acceptance, and self-love, and was inspired by her deep interest in tarot.
As I May – Karu LP (Mighty Music/SPV)
Recently released on CD – now available on vinyl. As I May is a four-piece modern melodic metal band from Mikkeli, Finland. Formed in 2016, the band sounds like a modern day mix of In Flames and Amorphis.
Bloc Party – Alpha Games CD/LP (BMG)
“Alpha Games was conceived on the road, playing in front of amazing crowds on our last tour and then brought to life with the fire and the frustrations of 2020,” says Kele Okereke on Bloc Party’s first new album in seven years. The first Bloc Party album written and recorded with a new lineup, adding the musicality of Justin Harris (bass) and the unbridled energy and power of Louise Bartle on the drums to capture the spark of their live shows. Produced by Nick Launay and Adam Greenspan (Nick Cave, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, IDLES), the 12 tracks of Alpha Games veer from the intense and confrontational (“Traps”, “Day Drinker”) to melodic and introspective (“If We Get Caught”, “By Any Means Necessary”) and marks a new and important chapter in one of music’s most important voices in Kele Okereke. [An indie store exclusive red color vinyl pressing is available.]
Bob Moses – The Silence In Between CD (Astralwerks)
Grammy Award-winning duo Bob Moses delivers their highly anticipated third album, The Silence In Between. One of the most anthemic moments here, “Love Brand New” finds Vancouver-bred musicians/producers Tom Howie and Jimmy Vallance tapping into their deep-rooted love for ’90s alt-rock and left-of-center dance music. Written with Michel Zitron and John Martin (a Swedish production duo known for their work with the likes of Avicii and Swedish House Mafia), the track encompasses a glorious collision of moody guitar tones, mercurial textures, and wildly propulsive beats as Bob Moses channel the dizzying euphoria of new romance. As their boldest and most viscerally charged output to date, The Silence In Between amplifies the unbridled energy that’s made Bob Moses a repeat winner of Resident Advisor’s Best Live Act prize. [Vinyl due May 13.]
The Cactus Blossoms – One Day LP (Walkie Talkie)
One Day is the third album from the Cactus Blossoms – featuring eleven songs written, produced, and harmonized by brothers Jack Torrey and Page Burkum. Recorded and mixed by longtime collaborator Alex Hall using a mobile rig in Page’s Minneapolis basement, the album continues the evolution of the band’s signature blend of country, soul, and ‘60s rock sounds, all anchored by the brothers’ core sibling harmony vocal style.
Cowboy Junkies – Songs Of The Recollection LP (Proper)
Recently released on CD – now available on vinyl. The new Cowboy Junkies album Songs Of The Recollection features covers of well-known songs by the likes of David Bowie, Gram Parsons, The Rolling Stones, Neil Young, Gordon Lightfoot, Bob Dylan, and The Cure.
Dead Head – Slave Driver LP (Napalm)
New album from the ‘80s-influenced thrash metallers.
Debit – The Long Count LP (Modern Love)
On The Long Count, Mexican-American producer Delia Beatriz has inked her most rigorous statement to date, sublimating opaque ancestral knowledge into vaporous AI-stirred fog banks, activating an ancient rite that reaches into tomorrow. It’s audacious electro-acoustic archaeology that sounds disorienting, anachronistic and arcane. The Long Count is rooted in research Beatriz made into Mayan wind instruments — whistles, ocarinas, flutes, and trumpets — using the archive of the Mayan Studies Institute at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, the oldest and largest collection of its kind. Developing a set of digital instruments that could be played using different types of temperaments and scales, Delia processed these sounds using machine learning techniques to shuttle the distant past into our extant artistic universe, peering into Mexico’s pre-colonial history and weaving those ideas into complex tonalities gleaned from musique concrète and contemporary electro-acoustic music. Her microtonal compositions are psychedelic to their core, shapeshifting through dimensions and painting complex mental images, while retaining a stylistic focus and lucidity that’s all too rare. File under: magick concrète. RIYL: Kali Malone’s just intonation work, CC Hennix’s concentrated music. Clear vinyl; printed inner sleeves.
Devil Master – Ecstasies Of Never Ending Night CD/LP (Relapse)
Philadelphia’s Devil Master’s roots in ritual magick have never been more prominent than on Ecstasies Of Never Ending Night. Recorded live to analog tape by Pete DeBoer (Blood Incantation, Spectral Voice), Ecstasies expands on the warped riffing and dark atmospheres that have already propelled Devil Master as one of the underground’s most unique and unfettered bands. [Limited-edition violet color vinyl.]
Don’t Problem – Liminality LP (Bridge the Gap)
On their new album, the South London-based eight-piece band combo challenges the common perception of a “covers” brass band, exclusively writing original material and adding electronics, synths, and strings, a reflection of their wide encompassing interests. They introduce you to a very personal journey; the moment in time where a brass band affirms their love for club culture and delivers an album that travels from heavy funk to psychedelic jazz and UK dance music. Don’t Problem’s debut DP EP combined the heavy funk and raw psychedelic sound of brass and drums with ferocious grime-inspired improvisation to deliver original and fresh music, aimed squarely at the dancefloor. The band is composed of eight musicians who’ve played with everyone from Tenderlonius, Emma Jean Thackray, Alfa Mist, Tom Misch, and Ruby Rushton to Riot Jazz.
Dorothy – Gifts From The Holy Ghost CD/LP (Roc Nation)
Gifts From The Holy Ghost, Dorothy Martin’s third studio album as frontwoman for their pseudonymous rock band Dorothy, is the album she’s always wanted to make. Born from a sense of diving urgency, it’s their most bombastic rock ‘n’ roll work yet. While the debut album was made on a combination of whiskey and heartbreak, Gifts was built on sobriety, health, and spiritualism, in a way that reverses the cliched “good girl gone bad” narrative.
Government Cheese – Love CD (Government Cheese)
The Cheese are back with their latest reunion offering, a new CD called Love. 11 new songs produced by Brad Jones (Josh Rouse, Marshall Crenshaw, Matthew Sweet, Jill Sobule). “With the records we’ve made over the second half of our career, we’ve made some of our best music ever, and while none of it will make you feel 19 again, we think it’ll make you wish you could dance like a dervish again without throwing your back out. “
Tigran Hamasyan – StandArt LP (Nonesuch)
Pianist and composer Tigran Hamasyan releases his first album of American standards. StandArt includes songs from the 1920s through the 1950s, by Richard Rodgers, Charlie Parker, Jerome Kern, David Raksin, and others; it also includes a piece Hamasyan improvised with his bandmates-bassist Matt Brewer and drummer Justin Brown-and trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire, who is featured on two of the album’s tracks. Other special guests include saxophonist and label-mate Joshua Redman on Charlie Parker’s “Big Foot” as well as saxophonist Mark Turner on Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein’s “All the Things You Are”.
Helms Alee – Keep This Be The Way LP+MP3 (Sargent House)
Across the span of their first five studio albums, Seattle trio Helms Alee have consistently refined their signature sound, blend of lilting siren songs, crushing thunder and sludge, and heady guitar pop filled with lush guitars and elaborate three-part vocal harmonies that reach widely across various subgenres of the heavy music world. On their latest album, Keep This Be The Way, the band expanded their palette by delving into the production possibilities afforded by recording the album themselves, creating their most dynamic and technicolored work to date.
Chris Janson – All In CD (Warner Nashville)
Chris Janson brings ’80s and ’90s country Influences to his new album All In, which includes collaborations with Eric Church and Travis Tritt.
Jonquan – Easy Star Presents Jonquan & Associates LP (Easy Star)
Though Jonquan is relatively new to the reggae scene, you’d never know it by listening to the music on Easy Star Presents Jonquan & Associates. Working closely with two-time Grammy winner Victor Rice (Easy Star All- Stars, Bixiga 70, Ticklah), Jonquan fashions brand new tunes that evoke the majesty of the golden age of reggae.
Lola Kirke – Lady For Sale CD/LP (Third Man)
Lola Kirke stands out like a flash of neon magenta in this nostalgic landscape of Americana tintypes. While many of her singing, songwriting peers look further back for inspiration, Kirke’s sweet spot is decidedly in the excess of the ‘80s. Anyone only familiar with Kirke through her on-screen performances (Mistress America, Gone Girl, Mozart In The Jungle) may be surprised by just how dazzling Lola-playing-Lola can be. Just a few lines into “Better Than Any Drug”, it’s clear no written role could reveal more of Kirke’s wit, lust for life, and sense of humor than this record captures with the help of producer Austin Jenkins (White Denim, Leon Bridges). The 10-song sophomore full-length LP showcases Kirke’s unselfconscious, country-twinged vocals alongside a brightly colored candy shop of glam-twang guitar riffs, department store TV commercial synth stylings, and swooping, lilting, unabashedly feminine background vocals. [Indie store exclusive lime green vinyl.]
Kitchen Dweller – Wise River LP (No Coincidence)
Hailing from Bozeman, MT, Kitchen Dwellers embody the spirit and soul of their home with a sonic palette as expansive as Montana’s vistas. The quartet – Shawn Swain (mandolin), Torrin Daniels (banjo), Joe Funk (upright bass), and Max Davies (acoustic guitar) – twist bluegrass, folk, and rock through a kaleidoscope of homegrown stories, rich mythology, American west wanderlust, and psychedelic hues.
Miranda Lambert – Palomino CD/2xLP (Sony Music Nashville)
For superstar Miranda Lambert, each of her seven consecutive No. 1 albums has presented a chance to explore a new theme while pushing herself across varying sonic landscapes. With the progressive 15-song album, Palomino, Lambert has crafted a record that explores the world and the people in it, seeking beauty and adventure all around. A line from the first song written for the album perhaps sums up the project as a whole best: “there’s always been a stranger in my soul / who loves a good goodbye and a good hello,” she sings in “Tourist”. On Palomino, her inner stranger travels lyrically from Fort Worth to the Mojave Desert; Battambang, Cambodia to Maine; the Crystal Palace in Bakersfield to the Rocky Mountains and beyond. In each destination and with every character met along the way, Lambert’s freewheeling trek is a work of unbridled freedom and self-discovery without painful introspection.
Sondre Lerche – Avatars Of Love 2xLP (Sondre Lerche LLC)
Having relocated to his native home of Norway in 2020, indie-pop auteur Sondre Lerche returns with his boldest, most expansive work yet: Avatars Of Love. Written and recorded within the span of a year, the album, as Lerche tells it, “burst into being during a very intense and hyperactive year of my life.” Produced by Lerche and his team of longtime collaborators Matias Tellez (girlinred) and Kato Adland, it features guests AURORA, CHAI, Mary Lattimore, and Felicia Douglass of Dirty Projectors.
Let’s Eat Grandma – Two Ribbons CD (Transgressive)
Let’s Eat Grandma released their second album, I’m All Ears, in 2018. It came out to a blaze of critical glory, thrilled fans who’d been with them since I, Gemini, and won them interested new listeners as they widened their musical scope. The band’s new album, Two Ribbons, tells the story of the last three years from both Jenny Hollingworth and Rosa Walton’s points of view. As a body of work, it is astonishing: a dazzling, heart-breaking, life-affirming and mortality-facing record that reveals their growing artistry and ability to parse intense feeling into lyrics so memorable you’d scribble them on your backpack. The band has been through a lot in the last three years, and Two Ribbons is the artefact that signals progression out of very distressing times; a story of loss, change, and of survival; a proof of life.
Loose Fit – Social Graces LP (FatCat)
Debut album from the Australian post-punk outfit. The band’s rhythm-heavy sound contains echoes of UK post-punk titans such as PiL and A Certain Ratio. Color vinyl pressing.
Madteo – Head Gone Wrong by Noise 2LP (Honest Jon’s Records)
Visceral, elemental, electronic funk, conjured from scraps of sound, breath, mutterings, dub-wise remembrances, scuffling, sweat and blood, thin air — “crawled out of the slime”, as the opener puts it, self-engendering like the baddie in Terminator — all harnessed to cruelly grooving earthquake bass and b-boy drum science. Rhythmically it has ants in its pants and it needs to dance, with an improvisatory, streetwise nervous energy and uninhibited, purposeful rapture, crossed with on-song Pepe Bradock and stripped-to-the-bone, mongrel hip-hop. It’s unruly and edgy, a bit off its rocker, emotionally ranging — typically anxious, often nostalgic — and riveting dance music.
Market – The Consistent Brutal Bullshit Gong LP (Western Vinyl)
Transparent dark blue color vinyl pressing. Recording engineer and multi-instrumentalist Nate Mendelsohn and his band use lyrical maximalism for the powers of good. Where Market’s previous home recorded releases shifted genre restlessly, on The Consistent Brutal Bullshit Gong Mendelsohn took a core band of longtime collaborators to a house in rural Massachusetts where they carved out space for his words to speak through with humor and intensity. [CD version due May 6.]
Melody’s Echo Chamber – Emotional Eternal CD/LP+MP3 (Domino)
Emotional Eternal, the third studio album from Melody’s Echo Chamber, is a deeply human collection of songs full of prolonged moments of sonic transcendency – a record that clearly exhibits its maturity but still regards the world with a childlike wonder. Having swapped Paris for the clean air of the Alps, Melody hopes “the record has that uplifting quality. I made some big and impactful decisions and changes to my life. It took me to where it is peaceful, and I think the record reflects this.” [Indie store exclusive red vinyl.]
Migos – Culture III CD (Quality Control)
Released last September on CD – now available on vinyl. Culture III is the third installment and finale of Migos’s blockbuster Culture trilogy. As a knockout climax, it spotlights their nimble ad-libs, bulletproof bars, head-spinning hooks, and irreplaceable chemistry. And it’s stacked with A-list co-stars: Cardi B, Drake, Future, Justin Bieber, Polo G, Youngboy NBA and the late Juice WRLD and Pop Smoke to name a few. The streets, the internet, and the game have been begging for Culture III for three years, and now Migos have delivered.
Rammstein – Zeit CD/2xLP (Virgin)
Zeit, the eighth album from the Berlin musicians follows their untitled No. 1 album that shot the band straight to the top of 14 international charts in 2019, after the longest break between albums of their career to date. Till Lindemann (vocals), Paul Landers (guitar), Richard Z. Kruspe (guitar), Flake (keyboards), Oliver Riedel (bass) and Christoph Schneider (drums) spent two years working on the eleven songs on the new album. They were once again assisted by Berlin producer Olsen Involtini. Zeit was recorded at La Fabrique Studios in St. Rémy de Provence, France. Lindemann’s commanding baritone resonates over solemn piano chords and an angelic chorus of sirens on the epic eponymous first single. [Two CD editions are available, each featuring unique packaging. A limited-edition 10” maxi-single of “Zeit” is also available this week.]
Oumou Sangaré – Timbuktu LP (World Circuit)
Oumou Sangaré is renowned worldwide for her vibrant and powerful music, which often features revolutionary messages about women’s rights, tradition, and poverty. Timbuktu is a stunning collection of songs, fusing her distinctive Malian sound and voice with elements of blues, folk, and rock, resulting in a timeless body of work, free from borders and genres.
Şatellites – Şatellites LP (Batov Records)
Şatellites’ sound shimmers between traditional Turkish folk and instrumentation, ethereal psychedelic guitar leads and groovy dancefloor baselines. The resulting concoction of songs draws on cross-continental influence, yet at its core is a desire to illuminate the vivid qualities of classic Turkish music, honoring the Anatolian folk and psych artists from this golden era of music. From the funky disco beat of “Disko Arabesque” to the celestial lead guitar in “Yağmur Yağar Taş Üstüne”, the band adds fire and flair to time-honored pieces of Turkish music, giving them new meanings. Throughout the creation of the album, the band strived to intertwine different elements such as the groove of funk, the rhythm of disco, and reverb of psychedelic, with traditional Middle-Eastern rhythm and structure, opening up the wealth of Turkish music to the western world. For fans of: Derya Yildirim, Altin Gün, Liraz, Baba Zula, Yin Yin, Ayyuka, Bab L’bluz.
Seratones – Love & Algorhythms CD/LP (New West)
Love & Algorhythms is an interstellar synthesis of astral soul, R&B, and sci-fi funk. Working with producer Paul Butler (The Bees, Micheal Kiwanuka, Caroline Rose, Hurray For The Riff Raff), Seratones have taken the invitation to knock at the door of the cosmos. A.J. Haynes’s voice dances with soul-stirring devotion at the altar of Black Feminisms: weaving the words Toni Cade Bambara, Octavia Butler’s Xenogenesis multiverse, echoes of bell hooks, and Audre Lorde’s Uses Of The Erotic: The Erotic As Power. With drummer Jesse Gabriel’s machine-like precision and the transcendental touches from guitarist Travis Stewart, the album oscillates between Alice Coltrane-inspired bliss and Giorgio Moroder’s ecstatic release. Each song hovers and pulsates in the wide, dark matter – constellations guiding a journey through the subtle body, the vast fullness of the human experience and the irresistible potential of liberation. [Indie store exclusive pink & purple splatter vinyl.]
Sofi Tukker – Wet Tennis CD (Sofi Tukker LLC)
Sofi Tukker, the genre-defying duo of Sophie Hawley-Weld and Tucker Halpern, is celebrated for their inclusive and global perspective on electronic music as well as their work’s themes of liberation, unity, and self-empowerment. Wet Tennis is an acronym: When Everyone Tries to Evolve, Nothing Negative Is Safe. Wet Tennis is about forward movement, optimism and growth, no matter what the challenge. Wet Tennis is a dedication to constantly evolving and celebrating aliveness. Wet Tennis is a lifestyle. It says: everything’s better when wet. Wetness is excitement, mother nature, movement, flow, sweat, and juice. It’s athletic and elegant. It’s loud and bright. All these qualities will be on full display when Sofi Tukker comes to town, both on stage and in the audience. [Vinyl edition – including a limited-edition picture disc version – due August 19.]
Speckmann Project – Fiends Of Emptiness LP (Target)
Black marbled color vinyl pressing. New album from extreme metal pioneer Paul Speckmann (Master, Deathstrike) and Swedish death metal-savant Rogga Johansson (Paganizer, Ribspreader, Revolting).
Caroline Spence – True North CD/LP (Rounder)
True North, the fourth album from Caroline Spence, showcases the singer/songwriter’s refusal to exalt or commodify her own experience, and instead reaches for a far more magnanimous exploration of grief, growth, and the endless complexities of human nature. The result is a body of work that affirms Spence as a truly incomparable artist, reinforcing her profound capacity to pack so much insight into songs that illuminate and mesmerize. [All copies of the Caroline Spence from Grimey’s – LPs & CDs – are autographed by Caroline! Available in the shop and in the Grimey’s webstore.]
Tall Heights – Juniors LP (Tall Heights)
The third full-length from Tall Heights, Juniors emerged from a period of profound turmoil and revelation for the Massachusetts duo. In the span of five months, Paul Wright and Tim Harrington experienced a convergence of events that included major health and substance-abuse crises among their closest loved ones, saying goodbye to Harrington’s grandfather and to a beloved grandfather figure for Wright, and-in far happier, yet still intense news-the announcement that each of their wives was expecting. Compounded by a series of shake-ups in their professional life, that upheaval coincided with the start of the pandemic. Rather than succumbing to the tremendous pressure of that point in time, Tall Heights chose to confront the chaos by creating within it. [Indie store exclusive blue & white swirl vinyl.]
Tomberlin – i don’t know who needs to hear this… CD/LP+MP3/Cassette (Saddle Creek)
Tomberlin is Sarah Beth Tomberlin, a pastor’s kid born in Florida, raised in rural Illinois. She wrote most of her debut, At Weddings (2018), while living at home. For a while after leaving home and church, she lived in Louisville, Kentucky. She worked a day job and kept writing songs. She posted some of these songs to Bandcamp, which led to her signing a record deal with Saddle Creek. It all happened fast: Less than a year after her first live show, she performed on Jimmy Kimmel and she ended up moving to L.A. which is where she wrote Projections (2020), her EP follow-up to At Weddings. During the pandemic, Sarah Beth was all over the place, physically and mentally. Louisville. Los Angeles. Back home in Illinois for a bit. Brooklyn, where she’s now settled, she says. Brooklyn is also where her new album i don’t know who needs to hear this… was recorded. [Indie store exclusive translucent orange vinyl.]
Toro y Moi – Mahal CD/LP+MP3/Cassette (Dead Oceans)
Toro y Moi’s seventh studio album, Mahal, is the boldest and most fascinating journey yet from musical mastermind Chaz Bear. The record spans genre and sound-encompassing the shaggy psychedelic rock of the 1960s and ’70s, and the airy sounds of 1990s mod-post-rock-taking listeners on an auditory expedition, as if they’re riding in the back of Bear’s Filipino jeepney that adorns the album’s cover. [Limited-edition silver vinyl.]
Trombone Shorty – Lifted CD/LP (Blue Note)
An album that captures the energy of his legendary live shows, Lifted combines classic New Orleans sounds (funk, gospel, street rhythms, Mardi Gras Indian chants and second lines) with modern lyrics, melody and beats to create something fresh and unique. Part Jimi Hendrix, part James Brown and all New Orleans, Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews is the bandleader and frontman of Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue, a hard-edged funk band that employs brass-band beats, rock dynamics and improvisation in a jazz tradition.
Ann Wilson – Fierce Bliss CD/LP (Silver Lining Music)
With Fierce Bliss, legendary Rock And Roll Hall of Fame inductee Ann Wilson – recognized as one of the greatest singers of all time and co-founder of multi-platinum stars Heart – has created a supremely lavish, warm and seductive slice of rock ‘n’ roll which provides an instant soundtrack whether on the freeway or in front of the fireplace. Recorded between Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals, AL and Power Station, Waterford, CT, Wilson got together with famed Nashville session guitarist Tom Bukovac and invited several friends (including Warren Haynes, Kenny Wayne Shepherd and Vince Gill) to help fashion an album which carries the glow of an ochre sunset and the pristine vocals of a rock legend who still has every single unique octave at her fingertips. [Ann Wilson will be in Nashville to play The Basement East on June 13th & 14th. Tickets are still available for both shows at The Basement East website.]
Watain – The Agony & Ecstasy Of Watain CD/LP (Nuclear Blast)
Seventh studio album from the black metal band. [A limited-edition red w/ rainbow splatter color vinyl pressing is available. An indie store exclusive white color vinyl is due May 6.]
The Weeknd – Dawn FM 2xLP (Xo)
Recently released on CD – now available on vinyl. Dawn FM is the fifth studio album by Canadian singer-songwriter The Weeknd. The album is narrated by Jim Carrey, and features guest appearances from Tyler, the Creator and Lil Wayne. The production was handled by The Weeknd himself alongside Oneohtrix Point Never – who produced most of the tracks-as well as Max Martin, Oscar Holter, Calvin Harris, and Swedish House Mafia, among others. The album serves as a follow-up to The Weeknd’s fourth studio album, After Hours (2020). [An indie store exclusive cassette edition featuring alternate cover art is also available this week.]
Wolves At The Gate – Eulogies 2xLP (Solid State)
Recently released on CD – now available on vinyl. Unrestricted by genre conventions and determined to raise the bar with each successive album, Wolves At The Gate deliver music and a message with a firm commitment to passion and authenticity. Tirelessly seeking out the light in seemingly overwhelming darkness, the Midwestern post-hardcore group balances soaring melodies with unrelenting metal and emotional heaviness.
