Indicators of Autumn: cooler weather, it's getting darker outside earlier, and the new releases list is getting more robust! Just look at this week's list. We get the long-awaited new album from Interpol. KEXP's Music Director Don Yates notes, the "New York-born band’s fifth album (and first without bassist Carlos Dengler) is a rock-solid return-to-form of brooding post-punk with strong song hooks, ringing angular guitars and pulsing rhythms accompanying Paul Banks’ gloomy vocals and often-dark, enigmatic lyrics." Ryan Adams also returns with a new album, "steeped in the sounds of ‘80s mainstream rock, particularly Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, combining sleek guitars, atmospheric keyboards and mostly mid-tempo rhythms with Adams’ plaintive vocals and often-melancholy lyrics." Yeah Yeah Yeahs frontwoman Karen O shares her debut solo release, "a sparse, lo-fi set of intimate love songs that she wrote and mostly recorded alone in her New York apartment around 2007, with most just featuring skeletal guitar lines and aching vocals." This morning's in-studio guest Avi Buffalo release their latest today, "another well-crafted set of roots-tinged psych-pop with a warm, beautifully detailed sound combining electric and acoustic guitars, piano, various horns and more with Avi’s breathy, falsetto-laden vocals and often-melancholy lyrics."
But wait! There's (a lot) more! Denver-based duo Tennis release their third album, "an expansive, smartly crafted blend of ‘60s girl-group pop, ‘70s funk-pop, folk-rock, electro-pop, psych-pop and more. With production split between three producers (Richard Swift, Spoon’s Jim Eno and The Black Keys’ Patrick Carney), the album still manages to sound cohesive while also being the band’s boldest statement yet." Canadian pop-masters Sloan return with "a double album with each of the band’s four members taking the singing and songwriting lead for one of the album’s four sides, moving from the Beatlesque pop of Jay Ferguson’s first side of the record to Chris Murphy’s jangly pop, Patrick Pentland’s chunky power pop and closing with Andrew Scott’s ambitious 18-minute pop suite." On their fifth album, Durham, NC group Hiss Golden Messenger feature "a strong supporting cast including William Tyler along with members of Megafaun and Mountain Man, the album combines a warm, ‘70s-influenced sound with Taylor’s literate, often-dark lyrics."There's no sophomore slump from reunited Toronto duo Death From Above 1979 whose "second album (and first in ten years) is a streamlined, tightly constructed blend of muscular hard rock and propulsive dance-punk, combining loud, fuzzy bass guitar, pummeling drums and lots of potent song hooks." British trip-hop pioneer Tricky is back with a "wide-ranging effort featuring a variety of guest vocalists and styles ranging from brooding trip hop and reggae-flavored tracks to hard-hitting hip hop and drum ‘n’ bass."
That barely covers it: check out the streams below!
Oh, hey, lookie here, U2 sprung a new album on us! The Irish superstars surprised the world with the release today at an Apple press conference for the new iPhone 6, which concluded with a performance of the opening track "The Miracle (of Joey Ramone)." The thirteenth album (and their first in five…
Holiday weekends are never the most robust for new releases, but some exciting albums did make the schedule this week. KEXP's Music Director Don Yates points out the third release from Sinkane, a project of Sudanese-born, Brooklyn-based multi-instrumentalist/vocalist (and former Yeasayer/Caribou/Of…
