LCD Soundsystem is back! James Murphy and company emerge from early retirement with their fourth studio album (and first in seven years). KEXP Music Director Don Yates declares it "a powerful return to form featuring some of Murphy's finest, most deeply felt songwriting with anxiety-fueled lyrics revolving around aging and the passage of time on songs ranging from driving, nervy dance-rock to wistful, elegiac ballads."
Additional highlights this week include the latest from Brooklyn band The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart. The group's fourth full-length is "a well-crafted set of soaring, shoegazer-tinged indie-pop with fuzzy guitars, gleaming synths, energetic rhythms and sparkling pop hooks." Irish duo Bicep debut with "an emotive, smartly crafted blend of house, techno, electro, Italo disco, jungle and more, combining energetic beats, psychedelic ambient textures, looped vocal fragments and shimmering melodies." Another excellent debut this week is from British band Inheaven, "a promising, '90s-steeped blend of riff-heavy grunge and shoegazer dream-pop with fuzzy guitars, pounding rhythms, catchy song hooks, often-sardonic, angst-fueled lyrics and alternating lead vocals from Chloe Little and James Taylor."
'90s shoegazers Curve release an expanded two CD edition of their 1992 debut Doppelgänger, expanded and packed with the singles and the three EPs (all remastered from the original tapes) plus four rare tracks including the Aphex Twin remix of "Falling Free." And Nick Cave and Warren Ellis team up again for the soundtrack to the thriller Wind River, a film starring Jeremy Renner and Elizabeth Olsen.
Beloved Brooklyn band The National are back with their seventh album. KEXP Music Director Don Yates calls it "another masterful set of brooding rock that injects a bit more electronic experimentation along with an occasional welcome return to rock aggression. As beautifully crafted and intricately …
Philadelphia band The War on Drugs return with the fourth album. KEXP Music Director Don Yates calls it, "an excellent set of expansive, '80s-steeped rock. Beautifully produced, the band's music has never sounded better than it does here with a bliss-inducing combination of expansive guitar leads, …
