Miguel Zenón & Luis Perdomo, El Arte del Bolero Vol. 3 (Miel Music)
Relevance check: The Hispanic and Latino community is a rapidly growing demographic in Manchester, N.H., making up approximately 13.5 to 14 percent of the city’s total population, or more than 15,000 residents, making it one of the largest and most vibrant multicultural communities in the state. Bolero and tango are two major components of the citizenry’s musical heritage, and this, the third full-length collection from sax player Zenón and pianist Perdomo, is, along with its unbridled romp into pure artistry, something of an archaeological expedition. These two have played together in Zenón’s quartet for 27 years, and the second volume in this series resulted in their winning a Grammy in 2024 for Best Latin Jazz Album; in other words there’s no questioning their qualifications, which here table sweeping, clever and above all romantic renderings of pieces like “El Día Que Me Quieras,” co-written by Argentinean music idol Carlos Gardel, renowned for defining the tango genre in the early 1900s. This wasn’t what I expected at all; it focuses on Latin music’s melodic patterning as opposed to its familiar percussion-driven vibe. A+
Anthony Moore with AKA & Friends, On Beacon Hill (Drag City Records)
There’s a renewed push for this November 2025-released album, so I leapt at the chance to get the vinyl version sent to me, not because I know Moore from SpongeBob SquarePants but because casual investigation showed that it was indeed unfairly overlooked and, in short, Something Important. At 77, Britisher Moore has a formidable CV, having collaborated with Pink Floyd (three co-writer credits on 1987’s A Momentary Lapse of Reason and “Wearing the Inside Out” on The Division Bell’) and Julian Lennon (on Help Yourself). The songs here are rerubs of tunes he’s recorded over the decades, including the single “World Service” from 1981 and other period pieces; thus it serves as both reminiscence and introduction, revealing the Floyd collaboratorship as logical: The songs are slow, saddish but not mawkish, i.e. there’s a psychedelic element at work, but fans of Nick Cave — especially his most morose records, like Ghosteen — will assuredly get a lot out of this. A-
PLAYLIST
A seriously abridged compendium of recent and future CD releases
• Friday, Aug. 21, what can you even say? Not only is it a day of new album releases for you, it marks many historic events in rock ’n’ roll history! For example, on Aug. 21, 1965, the Rolling Stones scored their first U.S. No. 1 album with Out of Our Heads, an album I’d never heard of until today, because I never cared! Let me look, OK, aside from “Heart Of Stone” and some other song I’m not familiar with, the album consisted of cover versions of old blues songs from people like Chuck Berry, Sam Cooke and waitwhat, Sonny Bono, from Sonny and Cher! Well, it actually makes sense, because back in those days, before the internet or cars or fire, Sonny Bono was a songwriter, not the sad television clown you all know him as, if you’re kind of old. OK, if you’re definitely old, but enough history filler, what you really want to know is what’s going on with Brandon Flowers, the singer from Killers, but there’s not much to tell, since he doesn’t get into beefs, because he is Mormon, who even knew. His third solo album is titled THRASHER, yes, in all caps, because whatever; it is a concept album serving as follow-up to the Killers’ 2021 album Pressure Machine. Like that one, this new one is a triptych of Flowers’ childhood growing up in Nephi, Utah, and is influenced by vintage artists like Johnny Cash, which explains the gospel-singalong-ish Grand Ole Opry vibe of leadoff single “Paradise.” He’ll be at Roadrunner in the snobby Brighton neighborhood of Boston on Sept. 23.
• Vermont native Grace Potter used to be in Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, but then she fell in love with her record producer, which caused her bandmate-husband Matt Burr to go “oh no you didn’t” and the band broke up, but before you start, she did end up marrying the producer guy. She is on her own these days, currently hawking her sixth album, Trespasser. The single “Love Me Not” is a rather interesting slow-rocker combining sounds remindful of both KT Tunstall (when she still had a few songwriting ideas) and Melissa Etheridge (because that’s who Potter usually sounds like, in other words half the songs you thought were Etheridge were actually done by this lady, and vice versa). Her 2026 tour will come very close to our state on Sept. 12 at River Ruckus in Haverhill, Mass.
• Ah yes, Weezer, the voice of an awkward, horribly mistreated generation, they are releasing their 20th album this week, once again titled Weezer, but this time everyone will refer to it as The Gold Album. If you’re one of the band’s fans, you’ve likely already heard the initial single, “Shine Again,” featuring a decent doomy-grungy guitar line that rips off Lit’s “My Own Worst Enemy,” which is of course itself a ripoff of most Weezer songs; the second single was “We Might as Well Be Strangers,” featuring a guest spot from shoegaze-slacker band Wednesday. That song is unbelievably lifeless and sounds completely phoned in, but for all I know you will relate to its message of suburban misery or whatever the guy who looks like Rick Moranis is singing about. These guys will play at TD Garden in Boston on Sept. 27.
• We’ll stick a fork in this exercise with Mystery Jets, an indie-pop/post-punk band from Eel Pie Island, situated in the River Thames in London; the people of that island are constantly bombarded with noise because the island is in the flight path of lots of flights coming in and out of Heathrow Airport, which is essentially how they invented their band name. A Hole To See The Sky Through, the band’s seventh LP, includes the title track, which is really cool, like Yes in rockout mode, or Supertramp if they didn’t suck.
Featured Photo: Miguel Zenón & Luis Perdomo, El Arte del Bolero Vol. 3 and Anthony Moore with AKA & Friends, On Beacon Hill
