It's been six years since we last heard from Seattle-bred band Fleet Foxes, and the group return with their third LP this week. KEXP Music Director Don Yates says the album's "expansive folk-pop is their most adventurous work to date, featuring a rich, ornate sound on sprawling, shape-shifting songs with complex arrangements and impressionistic lyrics."
On their fifth album (and first in 21 years), reunited UK band Ride deliver a "strong return-to-form of expansive shoegazer psych-rock with fuzzy guitars, yearning vocals and soaring song hooks." Beth Ditto, former frontwoman for Olympia-bred band Gossip, debuts with her first solo album, "a diverse, well-crafted set of rhythm-driven pop ranging from crunchy blues and soul-inflected rock and stomping glam to slinky disco dance-pop and anthemic power ballads."
Brooklyn-based band The Drums is, at this point, just frontman Johnny Pierce, who wrote every song and played all the instruments on the album. "The end result is as charming and effervescent as always, with Pierce's jangly, surf-influenced post-punk juxtaposing sunny melodies with often-dark lyrics of lost love." Veteran roots-rocker Steve Earle & the Dukes "revisits his outlaw country roots on his 16th studio album, which is also his best in over a decade. While the album's fairly diverse sound incorporates some jangly folk-rock, buoyant country shuffles and haunting folk ballads, the album is centered around the Telecaster-driven outlaw country of Waylon Jennings that inspired Earle at the beginning of his illustrious career." On his third solo album, Big Boi -- one-half of legendary Atlanta duo Outkast -- "is a bit too disjointed to reach the heights of Outkast or his previous solo releases, but it has a few worthwhile Southern hip hop bangers."
(Various Artists) Buddy Peace - "Mansion And A Yacht (Beat-Tape Edits)"
from Seafaring Strangers: Private Yacht on Numero
Alison Moyet - "Reassuring Pinches"
from Other on Cooking Vinyl
Arve Henriksen - "Groundswell"
from Towards Language on Rune Grammofon
Beth Ditto - "We Could Run"
from Fake Sugar on Capitol / Virgin
Big Boi - "Mic Jack ft. Adam Levine"
from Boomiverse on Epic Records
Big Bad Voodoo Daddy - "Ain't Nobody Here But Us Chickens"
from Louie Louie Louie on Savoy Jazz
Big Star - "The Ballad Of El Goodo"
from The Best Of Big Star on Stax
Can - "Turtles Have Short Legs"
from The Singles on Mute
Chain & the Gang - "The Logic of Night"
from Best of Crime Rock on In the Red Records
Cheap Trick - "Long Time Coming (Static Version)"
from We're All Alright! on Big Machine Records
Com Truise - "...Of Your Fake Dimension"
from Iteration on Ghostly International
Dead Heavens - "Isn't Wrong"
from Whatever Witch You Are on Dine Alone Records
The Drums - "Blood Under My Belt"
from Abysmal Thoughts on Anti Records
The Dustbowl Revival - "Call My Name"
from The Dustbowl Revival on Signature Sounds
Ekoplekz - "Acrid Acid"
from Bioprodukt on Planet Mu
Eli Young Band - "Fingerprints"
from Fingerprints on Valory
Fleet Foxes - "If You Need To, Keep Time on Me"
from Crack-Up on Nonesuch
Goldie - "Tomorrow's Not Today"
from The Journey Man on Cooking Vinyl / Metalheadz
GospelbeacH
from Another Summer of Love on Alive Naturalsound Records
Hey Violet - "Brand New Moves"
from From the Outside on Capitol / Virgin EMI
Iced Earth - "Great Heathen Army"
from Incorruptible on Century Media Records
Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit - "White Man's World"
from The Nashville Sound on Southeastern Records / Thirty Tigers
Jason Loewenstein - "Hey Hey"
from Spooky Action on Joyful Noise
Jefre Cantu-Ledesma - "Tenderness"
from On the Echoing Green on Mexican Summer
Kevin Morby - "City Music"
from City Music on Dead Oceans Records
Lorde - "Perfect Places"
from Melodrama on Republic / Virgin EMI
Lost Balloons - "Numb"
from Hey Summer on Dirtnap Records
Matthew Sweet - "Music for Love"
from Tomorrow Forever on S. Matthew Sweet
Michael Nau - "How You're So For Real"
from Some Twist on Suicide Squeeze
Mikey Young - "Enigmatic Cosmic Enforcer"
from Your Move, Vol. 1 on Moniker
Miranda Lee Richards - "The Wildwood"
from Existential Beast on 75917 Invisible Hand
Moby & the Void Pacific Choir - "It's So Hard To Say Goodbye"
from More Fast Songs About the Apocalypse on Mute
Nickelback - "Feed The Machine"
from Feed the Machine on BMG
Palehound - "If You Met Her"
from A Place I'll Always Go on Polyvinyl
Palm - "Walnut"
from Shadow Expert on Carpark Records
Peacers - "Haptic Chillweed"
from Introducing the Crimsmen on Drag City
Portugal. The Man - "Noise Pollution (feat. Mary Elizabeth Winstead & Zoe Manville)"
from Woodstock on Atlantic
Ride - "All I Want"
from Weather Diaries on Wichita
Rips - "Malibu Entropy"
from Rips on Faux Discx
Royal Blood - "I Only Lie When I Love You"
from How Did We Get So Dark? on Warner Bros.
Royal Trux - "Sometimes"
from Platinum Tips + Ice Cream on Drag City
Sammy Brue - "I Know"
from I Am Nice on New West
Single Mothers - "Long Distance"
from Our Pleasure on Dine Alone
Steve Earle & the Dukes - "So You Wannabe an Outlaw"
from So You Wannabe an Outlaw on Warner Music
Styx - "Gone Gone Gone"
from The Mission on Universal
Thelonious Monk
from Les Liaisons Dangereuses 1960 on Saga / Sam Records / Universal
Two strong reissues came out this past Friday, one being the expanded 20th anniversary edition of Radiohead's 1997 album OK Computer, featuring three previously unreleased tracks. KEXP Music Director Don Yates notes, "while not classic Radiohead, they're all fine examples of the band's brooding pro…
This week, French band Phoenix rises with their sixth album to date, KEXP Music Director Don Yates loves Ti Amo enough to call it "another sharply crafted set of buoyant pop-rock with a warm, streamlined sound featuring fizzy synths, glistening guitars, bouncy beats and sunny pop hooks". Brooklyn b…
