Author: Eric Saeger

Idle Heirs, Life Is Violence (Relapse Records)

Relapse continues to be one of the two or three (tops) metal-focused record labels I actually appreciate getting new stuff from, and the debut LP from this Kansas City crew is yet another spine-crunching assault, if you’ll pardon the metal-centric hyperbole. The “RIYL” (“Recommended If You Like”) list, so they told me, includes Deftones, Mogwai and Cult of Luna (in all honesty I was pleased that anyone knew Cult Of Luna even existed) and that’s right on target. I’d also add Isis as a more-or-less-soundalike, not that this record is as, I don’t know, polite as those guys; what I refer to is the raw intensity. We start with “Loose Tooth,” which lifts off with one of those balladic-acoustic patterns, with Coalesce singer Sean Ingram floating in mellow mode for a bit, and then the thing just explodes as Ingram lets out a Crowbar-worthy yowl that seems to go on forever (it sort of made me chuckle insanely, thinking about the last time a tooth was bothering the heck out of me). Anyway, it’s all overhead-speaker ambiance for Hell, as promised, not for the squeamish. A+

Roi Turbo, Bazooka [EP] (Maison Arts)

Fun act here, comprising two brothers named McCarthy, who grew up in Cape Town, South Africa, with music-loving parents and abandoned their drum lessons for autodidactic strategies (Conor played along to Bloc Party records; Ben learned via YouTube). I liked ’em already just based on that, but what’s even more hilarious and exhilarating is the underlying gay-disco-but-not-quite-gay-disco vibe of “Super Hands” on this five-songer. It’s pretty relentless, really, semi-seriously dabbling with Afrobeat and subsonic Aughts-era house cavitation; it made me think of YouTube’s Hulett Brothers, you know, the guys who do the trick shots with ping-pong balls and whatnot. These are party jams for sure, mildly gritty, slightly Ed Banger-ish instrumentals guaranteed to get heads a-bobbin’, for example “Dystopia,” with its faux-yacht-techno steez, which is punctuated with monkey sounds and ’70s-pop sweetness. They’ll be (very appropriately) supporting Empire Of The Sun at The Music Hall in Boston on May 24. A+

PLAYLIST

A seriously abridged compendium of recent and future CD releases

• And lo, unto the masses the lord (or someone pretending to be Him) commanded from his brunch table, “Let there be new albums dumped unto those peeps on March 28,” and thus it will be, this Friday, because I have no say in the matter! Yes, it’s another new release Friday, as we await “second winter” after a bunch of 60-degree days, but I’m ready for it! Why, you ask? Because I stored a turkey in our freezer in January, back when Market Basket was charging negative ten cents a pound for them or whatnot, so when this year’s Second Winter’s cruel frost sets in, I am going to be eating Second Thanksgiving Dinner, in my house, and then an entire blueberry pie, and then Petunia and I are going to go Christmas caroling in our neighborhood, dressed like Grinches, for the amusement of all the little children! Important note, I saved last year’s Detroit Lions’ Thanksgiving Day game on DVR, so I could watch it on Second Thanksgiving, so please don’t message me to tell me what the final score was, that’d be great, I just want to enjoy Second Winter in style, snoring on the couch! But where were we, oh yes, albums, and look at this, guys, the first thing to hit my radar is none other than Based On A True Story, the first album in 20 years from insane slapping person Will Smith! Wow, so that explains why he keeps coming up in “my socials” and by extension why my Twitter is full of slapping jokes! I was like, “Why is everyone suddenly making fun of the stupidest moment in the history of awards ceremonies, isn’t that old news,” but this explains it: The guy actually thinks we forgot about that incident with Chris Rock, my third favorite comedian after Doug Stanhope and Elon Musk! Well I’ll tell you, I haven’t forgotten, but I suppose there’s always the possibility that his new duet with Big Sean, “Beautiful Scars feat. OBanga,” will be so awesome and underground-hip-hoppy that I’ll be like, “Maybe Chris Rock actually deserved it for all his rotten ‘literally being a funny person’ antics, can’t we just pretend it’s 1990 again?” Nah, it’s awful; as you know, Big Sean peaked with Detroit 2, this is just corporate-hip-hop nonsense, with Auto-Tune, because of course there’s Auto-Tune. Some online person just said something about “Will should do a diss track of Jada Pinkett Smith and have Chris Rock spit some lines.” Ha ha, wouldn’t that be funny, OK, let’s move on from this horror, I’d love that.

• Mumford & Sons, they’re still relevant, aren’t they, or are we already past believing any good music came out in the 2010s? Well, doesn’t matter, the Mumfords’ new album, Rushmere, is getting uploaded to your Spotifys as we speak, and it will include the title track, which is another one of those urgent-sounding galloping-horsie indie-meets-bluegrass tunes those guys specialize in, so yes, it’s cool, if hilariously redundant. You know, they really need to make up their minds about what to do next while they figure out which Vegas theater will give them a residency after their inevitable Grand Ole Opry phase (ack, did that sound cynical, I can never tell).

• Speaking of horsies, there’s pop-metal band The Darkness again, with a new album, called Dreams On Toast, featuring their horsie-voice singer, Whatsisname! The new tune, “I Hate Myself,” sounds like 1970s-era Sweet but super-boring, has anyone ever actually cared about this band, like really seriously, pinkie swear?
• In closing this column, I’d like to say that Deafheaven is still around, as they have a new album coming out momentarily, Lonely People With Power! “Heathen” starts off sounding like Sigur Ros, and then they do their usual black-metal nonsense. I don’t actually hate it, make of that what you will.

Diane Coll, I Am Fire (Happy Fish Records)

Musically, Coll, a professional couples therapist from Atlanta, Georgia, is a true DIY warrior, having released three full-length albums since 2022 along with several EPs and singles, the latter of which this is, a three-songer released in honor of International Women’s Day (March 8). Coll’s muse for these songs is the goddess Kali, “destroyer of ignorance and liberator of the ego; a benevolent and unapologetic warrior who takes on the torment caused by those who operate from their own ignorance and the need to dominate others.” Sounds like my gender for sure, yes, and if you want to know (or don’t, it’s all good), I’m considering wrapping up my trilogy of internet-culture-focused nonfiction books with one about how women are subliminally oppressed on social media. Anyhow, to the music, tally-ho: In short, I’m very impressed. “Starting a Fire” is a brilliant deep-house-rooted exercise, its beat consisting of AM radio patter and a synth that becomes more menacing by the moment while Coll incants various warnings and calls for “accelerated action,” which was the theme of this year’s IWD observance. “Timeline Shift” is yoga-class soundtracking, reminiscent of Anugama, if you have any idea who that is; “Je Suis Feu” ends the set with a polyrhythmic tribal dance-along that’s both hypnotic and, well, catchy. Very nicely done, great-sounding stuff. A+

Luke Marzec, Something Out of Nothing, Side A (Swift Half Records)

Technically, this odd bird submits this as the “first half of his debut album,” which might play in Poughkeepsie but not with me; nevertheless I’ll play along and not tell you it’s an EP; let’s just proceed. Marzec’s a multi-instrumentalist Londoner who led a bunch of classical and jazz bands during his high school days, nowadays he’s a reformed music-academic who put out several other EPs prior to this release. He’s a terminally hip white kid whose gravelly singing voice evokes Satchmo and Little Richard, which screams “cultural appropriation” if you’re nasty, but you’d better be dissing Jamie Lidell too if you’re going to do that, not that this is the proper place to get into that. So what we have here is a jambalaya consisting of funk (“I Can’t Get You Out Of My Mind” is pure James Brown-ness), deep soul and random jazz phrasings that sound antiquated in all the right ways. Given that he’s racked up well over a million Spotify listens (and really knows what he’s doing) he’s certainly one to watch. A

_PLAYLIST

A seriously abridged compendium of recent and future CD releases

• Our country’s next “New CD Release Friday” is March 21, isn’t that the wackiest thing you’ve heard all week? We’ll get into it, but before I forget, everyone’s favorite local historian Fritz Wetherbee officially retired from his New Hampshire Chronicle post at WMUR TV, and so I am once again asking you, my loyal readers, to demand that the station hire me as his replacement and keep the tradition going! Hassle them on Facebook and MySpace or whatever, that’d be great!

But rather than delve into that any longer than my editors would want me to, it’s probably best to chat about the fact that Selena Gomez and Benny Blanco are releasing an album this Friday called I Said I Love You First! Those two are married, in case you didn’t know, and between Selena’s $1.3 billion fortune and Benny’s measly $50 million emergency fund, it’s safe to say that they’re able to afford to eat eggs every Sunday, in case you were worried about them. Where does this all lead us, fam? Well, where else: directly into the bizarre alternate universe of Bieberland. You see, Justin Bieber used to go steady with Selena, and they broke up (probably because he is insane) and last month the Biebs unfollowed former collaborator Blanco on Instagram, but not because he was envious of Blanco’s dating his ex, or so Bieber nation claims. That leaves only other two possibilities: Either he was hacked (in January he claimed he got hacked and the hacker unfollowed Biebs’s wife, Hailey) or Biebs is insane. You see, he (or the hacker) also unfollowed a bunch of other vacuous pop-culture celebrities, including Drake (who hasn’t?) and The Weeknd. Whatever, the title track from those two lovey-doveys’ new album is a chilled-down reggaeton thingamajig, featuring Selena singing like Lady Gaga like always. It’s cool, if anyone actually cares about this!

• You guys all know that English band The Horrors tabled the most disappointing sophomore album in rock history, but they’re back! Night Life, the band’s new LP, features the single “More Than Life,” a decidedly Depeche Mode-sounding thing. It’s very kyewl. They’re back!

• Louisville, Kentucky’s My Morning Jacket is also back, with Is, their new album! The single, “Time Waited,” sounds like Spandau Ballet trying to be Lynyrd Skynyrd, and if you have no idea what that might sound like, count your blessings.

• Aaand lastly it’s dream-poppers Japanese Breakfast with their new LP, For Melancholy Brunettes (& Sad Women)! The single, “Mega Circuit,” is really mellow for a dreampop tune, kind of like Lana Del Rey meets Wilson Phillips. They’ll be at The Music Hall in Boston on May 7.

Featured Photo: Diane Coll album I Am Fire and Luke Marzec album Something Out of Nothing, Side A.

Free Range, Lost & Found (self-released)

’Tis the season for music journalists getting inundated with spam from agents and record companies whose artists are scheduled to perform on various stages at the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas. This year’s conference ends on Saturday, March 15, so if you’re down in Austin reading this remotely, there might still be time to plan a visit to this person’s 8:15 p.m. show on the 15th at the Dear Life Showcase, which’ll be held at All The Sudden. The nym belongs to one Sofia Jensen of Chicago, who previously dazzled listeners with her 2023 album Practice; the overall vibe is easy listening Americana with lots of quirky but eminently listenable indie-weirdness on board. Lots of Norah Jones energy going on here, of course, but with a few vocally acrobatic twists; in the dobro-washed bluegrass tune “Storm” she browses the scale like a savvy farmers market shopper, finding hidden jewels of melody that are pretty unique. Well worth your time. A+ —Eric W. Saeger

Good Looks, Lived Here For A While (Keeled Scales Records)

Also performing on SXSW’s final day is this hometown Austin four-piece, who gravitate to feel-good rock that combines jam band, alt-country and ’90s radio-indie in fun ways. That’s not to say they aren’t serious-minded; the lyrics on this one take jabs at such things as “job creators” (“they’re just stealing our labor”) and that sort of thing, and besides, they’ve got plenty to be existentially discombobulated about; while leaving the venue where they’d just played the record release show for their critically acclaimed 2022 debut LP Bummer Year, lead guitarist Jake Ames was hit by a car crossing the street, fracturing his skull and tailbone. This album almost never happened, in other words, but after a lot of rehab and despair they’ve cobbled a seriously listenable set of songs reminiscent of Barenaked Ladies duking it out with Tom Petty (“If It’s Gone”) and Hank Williams Jr. (“Can You See Me Tonight”) in a dark alley. I couldn’t hate these guys if I tried. A+ —Eric W. Saeger

_PLAYLIST

A seriously abridged compendium of recent and future CD releases

• Today we’ll talk about the albums coming out on March 14, because that makes perfect sense, like it wouldn’t be timely or hip to talk about some military coronet album that came out in 1918, now would it? Unfortunately, the first thing we’ll need to talk about here is the fast-approaching 12th album from Nyack, New York’s favorite (because there aren’t any others) progressive-rock band, Coheed and Cambria! That band, as everyone knows, is cut from the same cloth as Mars Volta, Thank You Scientist and Muse, specializing in the sort of arena-rock style invented by Queen, whose albums were mostly comprised of half-written obnoxious filler tunes with one or two overwritten orchestral pieces added into the mix to get musically untrained critics to write nice things about them. Ahem, in the hierarchy of musical genres, Coheed and all those guys occupy the rung that sits just under Tool, Pendulum and Linkin Park; Coheed’s stuff is music for people whose post-grad sensibilities demand that they not get caught listening to actual techie-prog-metal because they don’t want to scare off future employers, so what Coheed does instead is throw a bunch of random musical notes in a blender and hope to attract the sort of listener who takes LinkedIn seriously (have you guys ever watched any of LinkedIn’s user-submitted short videos? They’re all basically “career-promotional videos,” starring and written by people who double-majored in marketing and business, and any time they come within a country mile of criticizing anything about corporate culture that obviously bugs them, a chimpanzee in a power suit zaps ‘em with a taser and they get back to the script). Anyway, if that describes you, and you want to stick with listening to anodyne milquetoast tripe instead of something interesting like Pendulum or Mozart, then Coheed’s new album, The Father Of Make Believe, is for you! Yup, like Billy The Exterminator used to say, I can’t wait to get my hands on this horrible new critter and tell you good folks all about it! So the single, “Searching for Tomorrow,” is like Linkin Park doing power pop, like, if Beavis and Butthead had jobs as human resources directors, they’d totally head-bang to it. If Dashboard Confessional had rabies it’d probably sound something like this (lightbulb moment: I’m going to start calling this band “LinkedIn Park!”).

• Circuit des Yeux is the stage name of Chicago-based singer/songwriter Haley Fohr, whose four-octave vocal range is a big deal to people who don’t like normal singing but instead prefer people who can both squeak like a Munchkin and mumble like Lurch from The Addams Family! While we’re on the subject, I always thought the super-high notes on allegedly four-octave-range-possessing chanteuse Mariah Carey’s “Fantasy” were generated by a computer, but this multi-talented blah blah blah person’s new album is called Halo On The Inside, and it spotlights a Trent Reznor-sounding single called “Megaloner” where she sings like the dude from Roxy Music, which is impressive.
• Electronic rock band Courting is from Liverpool, England, which goes to show you that not every band from Liverpool is as famous as The Beatles. Their new album Lust for Life has a single, “Pause At You,” that sounds like Aha meets Gang Of Four meets Hives; it’s OK.

• And finally we have Whatever the Weather, which is what British electronic producer/musician Loraine James likes calling herself in order to confuse old people or something. Whatever The Weather II is her new album, with the single “12°C,” a sluggish noise-electro ambient thingamajig that goes nowhere, but they’re your ears. —Eric W. Saeger

Featured Photo: Free Range, Lost & Found (self-released) & Good Looks, Lived Here For A While (Keeled Scales Records)

Anika, Abyss (Sacred Bones Records)

Since the assimilation of punk, New Wave, et al. by the corporate Matrix (it happens every time), rock and rebellion have been business partners more than any sort of combined force for socioeconomic or culturally equalitarian progress. You can quote me on that, but chances are that you’re already well aware of it; most of the tuneage that lands on this desk (from white-kid bands especially, let’s note) has no idea that “the system” is their real problem, not their awkwardness or generational malaise. Yet they persist, for the most part, but once in a while a record does bumble in here that evokes memories of artists who seriously wanted to break stuff rather than resign themselves to forlorn inevitability. This British-born, Berlin-based singer channels Patti Smith more succinctly than anyone I’ve heard recently; she actually wants people to direct their energies toward creating “safe spaces” where people can vent and collaborate on ideas for better living in an unlivable world. The tunes are rough and jangly and decidedly punky; she comes off like a ’90s-grunge Grace Slick with no-wave sensibilities. I hope she keeps sticking to this formula, put it that way. A+

The South Hill Experiment, Earthbreaks

Brothers Baird and Gabe Acheson left Baltimore for Los Angeles several years ago and the move is finally paying off: “Open Ocean,” the single from this, their band’s third full-length, hit No. 1 at KCRW, the seminal Santa Monica NPR affiliate. This is decidedly DIY stuff, probably recorded in their bedrooms, which afforded them the opportunity to experiment, as heard in album opener “Rifting,” built around backward-masked percussion and gentle vocals that have the reverb set to 11 (it’s not shoegaze, just to clarify, it’s a lot more experimental than that: Think early Luke Temple or a more technologically adventurous Gorillaz). But things change quickly here, with “Maybe It Takes Time” borrowing its bubbly ’70s-radio-pop undergirding from Michael McDonald, and then we have the focus track, “Open Ocean,” a deep-house-adjacent dance-along combining Atlas Sound with Jamie Lidell. This is all to say that it’s definitely worth investigating, I assure you. A

Playlist

• Feb. 28 is a Friday, which means new albums will be released en masse! Now, one thing we Professional Music Journalists always have to remember is that not every band with “Bear” in its name sounds the same, even if OK, they basically do. It’s sort of like bands that have “Deer” in their names: Deerhoof and Deer Tick are both supremely boring indie bands, but my mnemonics go like this: “Deerhoof helps me fall asleep faster than Deer Tick when I’m stressed,” or “Don’t even bother trying to name a Deer Tick song, because even their fans don’t remember any of them.” You see? But I digress, which I can do because it’s my multiple-award-winning column, so let’s get back to the “bear” thing. I liked Grizzly Bear, but only because I didn’t really hate them; they can indeed be borderline interesting with their skronky noise approach, and Minus The Bear was a great prog band but for some reason no one cared about them or their potluck formula of Rush-meets-Jackson Browne, so they broke up, and it made me sad. But the really sad news is that for the purposes of this week’s column I have to pretend I know who Panda Bear even is if I ever hope to win another award, let’s go have a look, because their new album, Sinister Grift, is coming out this Friday! Oh, OK, Panda Bear is what Noah Benjamin Lennox calls himself, in order to get dates with awkward college girls just like all the other indie rock bros. Lennox is co-founder of Animal Collective, a band that was relevant during the Aughts when college radio stations nationwide became hypnotized by their use of “fractal” music patterns, back before Nels Cline of Wilco invented the fractal riff to “Love Is Everywhere,” which was so cool that it instantly made people forget who Animal Collective even is (what took you people so long?). Anyway, at first, the “Defense” single sounds like a Hank Williams Jr. song about sitting in a Dumpster drinking Jagermeister, which would be cool, but then it turns into a really boring mess, something you could tell your little brother was considered too stupid to be added to the Napoleon Dynamite soundtrack and he’d totally believe you.

• Brooklyn R&B singer Jonathan Josiah Wise is more famously known as Serpentwithfeet, and since we were just talking about Grizzly Bear, his Wikipedia page says that he opened for them for a while. Boy, this Wiki page may be the most boring one I’ve ever seen — blah blah blah, his mom forced him to join a boys choir, he worked with a producer who worked with Bjork, yadda yadda. Whatevs, his new album is Grip Sequel, featuring the single “Writhing In The Wind.” The beat is kind of cool, like Blue Man Group doofing around with Aphex Twin, and Wise is singing like Keith Sweat. Is that what all the children are listening to now, I simply must know.

• Andy Bell used to play bass for famous indie-pop band Oasis, but now he is on his own because everyone in Oasis hates each other. Pinball Wanderer is his latest “opus,” and the single “I’m In Love…” is very neat because it sounds exactly like Wire circa Change Becomes Us, except there are girls singing. I endorse it.

• Lastly it’s British metalcore band Architects, whose new album The Sky The Earth & All Between is on its way to your eardrums if that’s the sort of thing you enjoy doing to yourself. This is pretty loony stuff, reminiscent of Dillinger Escape Plan and such, but with occasional Cannibal Corpse vocalizing. What does that mean? It means that their listening experience is lightning-fast and scary, but one of the things chasing you is the Cookie Monster, and he really wants your tasty, tasty cookies!

Featured Photo: Yes, Relayer (Atlantic Records), Rush, Permanent Waves (Anthem Records), & Eric Comstock & Barbara Fasano, Painting The Town (Human Child Records)

Anika, Abyss (Sacred Bones Records)

Since the assimilation of punk, New Wave, et al. by the corporate Matrix (it happens every time), rock and rebellion have been business partners more than any sort of combined force for socioeconomic or culturally equalitarian progress. You can quote me on that, but chances are that you’re already well aware of it; most of the tuneage that lands on this desk (from white-kid bands especially, let’s note) has no idea that “the system” is their real problem, not their awkwardness or generational malaise. Yet they persist, for the most part, but once in a while a record does bumble in here that evokes memories of artists who seriously wanted to break stuff rather than resign themselves to forlorn inevitability. This British-born, Berlin-based singer channels Patti Smith more succinctly than anyone I’ve heard recently; she actually wants people to direct their energies toward creating “safe spaces” where people can vent and collaborate on ideas for better living in an unlivable world. The tunes are rough and jangly and decidedly punky; she comes off like a ’90s-grunge Grace Slick with no-wave sensibilities. I hope she keeps sticking to this formula, put it that way. A+

The South Hill Experiment, Earthbreaks

Brothers Baird and Gabe Acheson left Baltimore for Los Angeles several years ago and the move is finally paying off: “Open Ocean,” the single from this, their band’s third full-length, hit No. 1 at KCRW, the seminal Santa Monica NPR affiliate. This is decidedly DIY stuff, probably recorded in their bedrooms, which afforded them the opportunity to experiment, as heard in album opener “Rifting,” built around backward-masked percussion and gentle vocals that have the reverb set to 11 (it’s not shoegaze, just to clarify, it’s a lot more experimental than that: Think early Luke Temple or a more technologically adventurous Gorillaz). But things change quickly here, with “Maybe It Takes Time” borrowing its bubbly ’70s-radio-pop undergirding from Michael McDonald, and then we have the focus track, “Open Ocean,” a deep-house-adjacent dance-along combining Atlas Sound with Jamie Lidell. This is all to say that it’s definitely worth investigating, I assure you. A

Playlist

• Feb. 28 is a Friday, which means new albums will be released en masse! Now, one thing we Professional Music Journalists always have to remember is that not every band with “Bear” in its name sounds the same, even if OK, they basically do. It’s sort of like bands that have “Deer” in their names: Deerhoof and Deer Tick are both supremely boring indie bands, but my mnemonics go like this: “Deerhoof helps me fall asleep faster than Deer Tick when I’m stressed,” or “Don’t even bother trying to name a Deer Tick song, because even their fans don’t remember any of them.” You see? But I digress, which I can do because it’s my multiple-award-winning column, so let’s get back to the “bear” thing. I liked Grizzly Bear, but only because I didn’t really hate them; they can indeed be borderline interesting with their skronky noise approach, and Minus The Bear was a great prog band but for some reason no one cared about them or their potluck formula of Rush-meets-Jackson Browne, so they broke up, and it made me sad. But the really sad news is that for the purposes of this week’s column I have to pretend I know who Panda Bear even is if I ever hope to win another award, let’s go have a look, because their new album, Sinister Grift, is coming out this Friday! Oh, OK, Panda Bear is what Noah Benjamin Lennox calls himself, in order to get dates with awkward college girls just like all the other indie rock bros. Lennox is co-founder of Animal Collective, a band that was relevant during the Aughts when college radio stations nationwide became hypnotized by their use of “fractal” music patterns, back before Nels Cline of Wilco invented the fractal riff to “Love Is Everywhere,” which was so cool that it instantly made people forget who Animal Collective even is (what took you people so long?). Anyway, at first, the “Defense” single sounds like a Hank Williams Jr. song about sitting in a Dumpster drinking Jagermeister, which would be cool, but then it turns into a really boring mess, something you could tell your little brother was considered too stupid to be added to the Napoleon Dynamite soundtrack and he’d totally believe you.

• Brooklyn R&B singer Jonathan Josiah Wise is more famously known as Serpentwithfeet, and since we were just talking about Grizzly Bear, his Wikipedia page says that he opened for them for a while. Boy, this Wiki page may be the most boring one I’ve ever seen — blah blah blah, his mom forced him to join a boys choir, he worked with a producer who worked with Bjork, yadda yadda. Whatevs, his new album is Grip Sequel, featuring the single “Writhing In The Wind.” The beat is kind of cool, like Blue Man Group doofing around with Aphex Twin, and Wise is singing like Keith Sweat. Is that what all the children are listening to now, I simply must know.

• Andy Bell used to play bass for famous indie-pop band Oasis, but now he is on his own because everyone in Oasis hates each other. Pinball Wanderer is his latest “opus,” and the single “I’m In Love…” is very neat because it sounds exactly like Wire circa Change Becomes Us, except there are girls singing. I endorse it.

• Lastly it’s British metalcore band Architects, whose new album The Sky The Earth & All Between is on its way to your eardrums if that’s the sort of thing you enjoy doing to yourself. This is pretty loony stuff, reminiscent of Dillinger Escape Plan and such, but with occasional Cannibal Corpse vocalizing. What does that mean? It means that their listening experience is lightning-fast and scary, but one of the things chasing you is the Cookie Monster, and he really wants your tasty, tasty cookies!

Featured Photo: Anika, Abyss (Sacred Bones Records) & The South Hill Experiment, Earthbreaks

Sanhedrin, Heat Lightning (Metal Blade Records)

I haven’t checked in with the Metal Blade Records stable in quite a while. This record seemed mildly interesting, given that the New York-based three-piece band’s musicianship is advertised as being top-drawer, which made me think of Rush, a band that was rather interesting for two or three albums before they decided to kind of suck. Ah yes, look at that typical Metal Blade-approved cover art, evoking an AI-created Halloween card created for sale at dollar stores; but wait. Opening song “Blind Wolf” rips off the intro to Metallica’s “For Whom The Bell Tolls,” then combines Savatage and Mercyful Fate and tables some really nice melodic touches. “Above The Law” nicks Buckcherry but in a good way; “Franklin County Line” Slayer-izes the Fates Warning formula. It’s fine for what it is. A —Eric W. Saeger

Mark Pritchard & Thom Yorke, “Back In The Game,” Warp Records

The only reason I came within a country mile of paying any attention whatsoever to this new collaborative single is its painfully strident “edgelord” factor: “Look everyone, it’s Thom Yorke! And it’s on Warp Records!” Usually I avoid both those things like leper-hospital Dumpsters (my favorite all-time line about Yorke was Dr. David Thorpe’s iconic “Thom Yorke, the man with completely superfluous letters in both his names,” while Warp’s output has never failed to disappoint me; they have a strange fetish for electronic music that’s so boring it makes Postal Service sound innovative), but it was either this or dig through my emails for something great but which most of you wouldn’t care about anyway, so here we are. Pritchard, of Reload and Link fame, previously featured Yorke on the Sigur Ros-ish “Beautiful People” from his (Pritchard’s) 2016 LP Under The Sun; the only thing that made that tune interesting was its New Age vibe and some mildly innovative vocal effects. This track employs the latter trick again but with less boldness; all in all the song comprises dated, government-issue krautrock that sounds like a bonus track from the Saw soundtrack. There, I pretended to care about this, I demand my gold sticker this instant. C —Eric W. Saeger

_PLAYLIST

A seriously abridged compendium of recent and future CD releases

NOTE: Local (NH) bands seeking album or EP reviews can message me on Twitter (@esaeger) or Facebook (eric.saeger.9).

• Before I descend into the usual madness about albums good and bad coming out this Friday, Feb. 21, here’s something important. You guys know I’m a big supporter of New England-based singer-songwriter Kris Pedersen, whose award-winning Tom Petty-meets-Florida Georgia Line/Kings Of Leon-style music is amazingly well-written and well worth your support. You may also know that he’s had a very tough slog of it, but on Feb. 9 the absolute worst possible thing happened. A fire consumed his family farmhouse in South Wallingford, Vermont, in no time flat; his home and all his possessions were totally gone before the fire department guys could even get set up. He and his wife April have literally nothing left but the clothes they were wearing that day, and that’s where you rascals come in: Kris’s fan base stepped up immediately to start a donation page, which is already up to around $3,500 at this writing with a $5,000 goal (and no limit), but he’s obviously going to need a lot more than that to get back to business, so if you’re feeling it, please do give. “Mutual aid” is a big thing nowadays, as you probably know, and this is as deserving a cause as you could ever imagine, so if you have a few bucks to spare, please donate to Kris’s GoFundMe pool at this page: www.gofundme.com/f/support-kris-and-family-after-devastating-fire. It’s the best way for you to help out this struggling world-class artist.

• British techno-funk-blues singer Neo Jessica Joshua is better known as Nao, and her new album, Jupiter, will be out this Friday! Her resumé is top-level, including singing backup for such peeps as Kwabs and Jarvis Cocker, and six years singing in an all-girl a cappella group called The Boxettes. And so I must take her very seriously, and thus I shall remove my (true fact) custom-designed T-shirt that reads “Your Band Completely Sucks =(” and approach this section with all the professionalism I can muster, excuse me while I open this box of Jolly Joes grape jellybean thingies to ensure that my brain has enough reserve sugar for the task! So I am watching the visualizer video for her new song, “Happy People,” and let me just say that she is blessed with a bubbly voice that sounds kind of like a Munchkin; the music underneath is sparse and lo-fi, a combination of acoustic guitar and authentic-sounding Afrobeat, in sum a very island-vacation feel to this. It is very nice, yes.

• Singing human Patterson Hood, a co-founder of the band Drive-By Truckers, releases his fourth solo album this Friday, Exploding Trees & Airplane Scream! The spearhead track is “The Pool House,” whose video features the stupidest-looking puppet I’ve ever seen, doofing around in a quaint doll house or whatnot. The music is an eclectic but listenable mixture of Bon Iver and corporate country & western, sort of like what you’d hear if Garth Brooks toned things down in order to do a Robert Palmer trip from 1990, you know, when he did that dumb Marvin Gaye cover tune.

• British wimp-indie bros The Wombats are up to six LPs as of this Friday, with their latest, Oh! The Ocean. “Can’t Say No” is a twee-ized ripoff of Echosmith’s two big hits, you know the ones. Nice but completely disposable.

• Lastly we have Boise, Idaho-based producer-DJ-whatever Trevor Powers, who goes by the nym Youth Lagoon, and his new album, Rarely Do I Dream! “Speed Freak” is wicked cool in my opinion, a ratty, crunchy no-wave/electro joint with an ’80s-pop center. —Eric W. Saeger

Featured Photo: Sanhedrin, Heat Lightning (Metal Blade Records) & Mark Pritchard & Thom Yorke, “Back In The Game,” Warp Records