Author: Eric Saeger

Dan Rosenboom, Polarity (Orenda Records)

L.A.-based trumpeter/composer Rosenboom leads a modern jazz quintet assisted by the production expertise of Justin Staley, who has worked on albums by Prince and Beck in the past. I really like this one. Opening song “The Age Of Snakes” has a slow, city-at-midnight beat that’s pure addictive chill, featuring some truly wonderful (and, appropriately, serpentine) interplay between Rosenboom and progressive-steeped sax guy Gavin Templeton. Those guys are heavyweights in the L.A. jazz scene, which has been trying to find its center-point over the last few years, but they imported both pianist John Escreet and drummer Damion Reed from New York City to liven things up, which they certainly do on “A Paper Tiger,” a hyper-speed post-bop-tinged foray into harmonic dissonance powered by jaw-dropping solo turns from those two. Templeton summons Wayne Shorter in the lonely but happy “On Summoning The Will”; group-syncopation and world-melodic patterning infuses “Ikigai” with a level of gentle forcefulness you rarely find. A great record. A+

Alex Lore & Weirdear, Evening Will Find Itself (Whirlwind Recordings)

Weird, this: Just when I thought the Dan Rosenboom album (reviewed elsewhere on this page) was going to be the most accessible/sturdy/appealing jazz record I’d hear for months, this one came in on the same banana boat sent by one of my favorite PR providers. Lore, whose trip is more Mingus-ish and less prog than Rosenboom’s crew, plays sax in this quartet but it’s similar in its sonically forceful gentleness, which we could all use right now, am I right? In fact, the apocalyptic state of the world (watch any YouTube interview with economist Clara Mattei if you really want to know how America got into this mess) figures heavily into this set of songs, in which Lore, a rising star, attempts to make sense of it all through careful experimentation. One quibble, it would have been nice to have anything — especially a trumpeter or Pro Tools person — aboard to canoodle with him further, but Glenn Zaleski’s piano helps deliver the latte-bar ambiance well enough. A

Playlist

• June 23 is a wonderful day in the neighborhood, because it is a Friday, which means new albums, new albums everywhere! What’s really great is that this week I get to pick on one of those American Idol people, Kelly Clarkson to be specific, because she has a new LP coming out on the 23rd, Chemistry! I mean, I think she’s a nice lady and a true warrior for whatnot cause and yadda yadda, but those talent shows have bothered me from the beginning, like, they all have a sort of Hunger Games patina to them, don’t they? And most of the big winners end up getting polite-sized record contracts and eventually wind up doing nothing really. Remember Taylor Hicks? I don’t either, like I had to toss “American Idol Taylor” in the internet search-box because I couldn’t remember his full name for the life of me. Lol, what a weird time that was, those early American Idol days, wasn’t it? It seemed as though the world was just careening off a cliff, that corporate garbage-pop had finally won and taken the last bit of fun away from music itself. Hicks looked like George Clooney’s really stupid brother, which appealed to people at some level, and then he put out two “blue-eyed-soul” albums that were too white to be considered cultural appropriation, the last one in 2009, and nobody bought them, and then the Billboard world suddenly woke from their stupor and mumbled something about Kelly Clarkson, and here we are. I’ll bet the new single, “Mine,” is Vegas-ized country-pop, wouldn’t that be extraordinarily bizarre, especially since she’s doing a 10-show stint in Vegas that’ll probably turn into a lifetime residency? Yes it would, and guess what, “Mine” is a diva ballad in which Clarkson tries to sound like every other currently relevant diva within each of the lines alternately; it’s like some sort of TikTok challenge: the first two lines sound like Billie Eilish, then Beyonce, then there’s some loud Adele myna-birding, and so on. The song itself is pretty good for a way-too-serious attempt at bumming out well-off yuppie girls who don’t have boyfriends, but you might like it, I do not know.

• Yikes, here we go, let’s start some arguments, whattaya say? I used to have a CD from Portugal. The Man in my car, and gang, I tried sooo hard to like them, mostly because I sort of felt sorry for their being a six-piece indie band from Alaska, like, what parent would want that for their children, you know? Whatever, I listened and listened and eventually gave up, because I couldn’t stand them at all. But now I have friends my age (never you mind) who’ve been hypnotized into liking them, and I know I’ll be hearing all about the band’s fast-approaching new album, Chris Black Changed My Life, but this time I’m actually going to listen to it and see if I can keep my lunch down, just so that I can stay relevant in the always evolving world of rock ’n’ roll music, so let’s do this thing, let’s listen to their probably dumb new song, “Champ,” which is the most appealing to me at the moment, because Edgar Winter is playing in it for some ridiculous reason, which means that there will be some minor guitar-god stuff in it. Yup, there is, toward the end, but other than that it’s awkward ironic trash, with Beach Boys vocals and Flaming Lips junk all over the place. I hate it.

• Ack, look fam, it’s Baltimore’s favorite boy-girl indie-folk/dream-pop/noise act, Wye Oak, with their new full-length, Every Day Like The Last! The pair’s newest single, “I Learned it From You,” is in front of my face right now, let’s just get it over with. Yup, sounds kind of Pretenders-ish, mopey, the drum sound is huge, it’s OK.

• And finally, let’s look at Melodies On Hiatus, the new full-length from the second-banana guitarist from The Strokes, Albert Hammond Jr.! “100-99” is an indie-hip-hop crossover tune featuring Goldlink on raps. Hammond’s voice sucks, so it’s relevant.

If you’re in a local band, now’s a great time to let me know about your EP, your single, whatever’s on your mind. Let me know how you’re holding yourself together without being able to play shows or jam with your homies. Send a recipe for keema matar. Message me on Twitter (@esaeger) or Facebook (eric.saeger.9).

Troller, Drain (Relapse Records)

So this one is basically a cross between the ambient doom-drone of Sunn(((O))), Swans-style apocalypse-noise-punk and Raveonettes, in other words music to chant devil incantations by, in sum. It was purported to me to be possessed of such elements as “witch-house, goth-pop and industrial shoegaze,” which I suppose equals my above assessment; it’s proffered by a trio from Austin, Texas, composed of singer/bassist Amber Star-Goers (possibly not her real name), Justin Star-Goers (ditto) on guitar and SURVIVE synthesist/programmer Adam Jones. The tune “Lust In Us” is assuredly a shoegaze excursion, bathed in decidedly anti-sexual warbling and existential noise that isn’t on a My Bloody Valentine tip, more a sort of radio-static-dipped albeit melodic base. It’s a formula that could have served well enough to produce a full album, but as I pointed to earlier, the trio has other plans, mainly of the volcanic slow-motion-math variety. “Out Back” has an ’80s-synthpop edge to its woozy, muddy weirdness. B+

The Alarm, Forwards (Twenty First Century Recording Company)

During their early ’80s heyday, pushing hits like “The Stand” (which you’ve likely heard if you’re a devout follower of the 13 Reasons Why TV series; it played in the background of one episode, which led to 3 million Spotify plays) and “68 Guns” (their signature tune), this Leeds, U.K., band was a kinder, gentler Clash, I’d say; there was enough tough-guy edge to make their melodically agreeable tuneage appeal to the safety-pin-pierced patrol while maintaining a rather polite U2 flavor. This album, their first since 2021’s WAR, finds singer Mike Peters taking a decidedly Bono direction (particularly in the mid-tempo ”Another Way), which helps to justify his aping Tom Petty a bit in the blues-tinted “Love and Forgiveness.” “Transition” is the best on board here, fiddling with a sort of Ennio Morricone spaghetti-Western vibe before exploding into its Cult-inspired second half. I wouldn’t say the band’s evolved per se, but they’re still a bunch of (mildly) bad boys with a desire to make a dent. B+

Playlist

• I was privileged to attend the Sisters Of Mercy show at the Big Night Live club in Boston on May 31, so it’s a great time to remind all the young ’80s-goth-rock-loving kids out there that their last album, 1990’s Vision Thing, is still available to buy and act tragic to, if you really want to be an edgelord and impress your little friends with your comprehensive black-fishnet-clad acumen! Oldsters know that the big songs on that one were the title track and “Doctor Jeep,” and that the album was produced by Bat Out Of Hell fixture Jim Steinman, but wait, a few things first. The album you really want is 1987’s Floodland, which includes the band’s most enduring hits, namely “This Corrosion,” “Dominion” and “Lucretia My Reflection,” all groove-centric tunes that inspired the Boston crowd to break into snake-charmer dance moves when they were nicely rendered at the Boston show. The classic songs were the shorter studio versions but effective nonetheless, bringing the loudest applause after a series of less well-known numbers, a couple of which were pretty cool. It was the first time I’d been to Big Night Live (or any club in the last three years, owing to Covid), and I was treated super-nicely: the staff found me a table at which to sit so that my injured foot could take a nice break here and there. Anyway, what was I — oh yes, so even though Sisters frontman Andrew Eldritch is widely regarded as the godfather of goth, he hates that appellation, so don’t do it, even though he is totally, totally goth. He’s no longer the long-haired troublemaker of olde; nowadays he looks more like James Carville than Sid Vicious, but he still sings angrily and spookily, and hearing them play “This Corrosion” was worth getting stuck in an inexplicable midnight traffic jam for 1.5 hours. And voila, there you go, vampire kids, go support your uncle Andrew!

• Getting back to our usual business, June 16 will find you covered head to toe in albums, because it is a Friday, which means zillions of albums — most of them joke albums from troll bands, or just plain bad albums from people who still think the planet needs more albums — will enter Earth’s atmosphere at the speed of light, and they will all change course as they hurtle and make a beeline for people like yours truly, renegade music “journos” who still tell the truth about how most albums are pretty awful. But maybe that will change during today’s album-storm, as we look at the new Deer Tick album, Emotional Contracts, with a clinically detached eye, looking for something praiseworthy in this album. Yes, it’s one of those bands with “Deer” in the name, so I’m lost; I don’t remember the last few album reviews I wrote trying to excuse Deerhunter or Deerhoof or Deerpark or Deer Tick, so (as always) let’s just take the easy way by starting from scratch and having a look at this indie-rock album, which will probably be subtly boring or earth-shakingly awful like all the other “Deer” albums I’ve reviewed over my career. But look at that, it’s not so bad: “Forgiving Ties” is the closest thing to a Tom Petty single since “Learning to Fly,” except it goes nowhere melodically. It is meh but I don’t hate it.

• Jackpot, gang! Look at the title of this new album from psychedelic druggie dorks King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, it’s going to take over half the space for this column, and for that I thank it! Ready to spend eight minutes reading the title? OK, it’s: Petrodragonic Apocalypse; Or, Dawn Of Eternal Night: An Annihilation Of Planet Earth And The Beginning Of Merciless Damnation! That leaves us about 10 words left to talk about how the bald Needle Drop music reviewer dude on YouTube thought the title track “dragged a little bit” at the end, which is wrong, as always. If you like old Black Sabbath, that’s what it sounds like, not their usual early Pink Floyd/Flaming Lips nonsense. Never pay attention to Needle Drop, is the moral to this story.

If you’re in a local band, now’s a great time to let me know about your EP, your single, whatever’s on your mind. Let me know how you’re holding yourself together without being able to play shows or jam with your homies. Send a recipe for keema matar. Message me on Twitter (@esaeger) or Facebook (eric.saeger.9).

Cache, Cache (self-released)

Minneapolis, Minnesota, is from where this five-piece band originates; their aim, if I’m translating their one-sheet correctly, is making mud-metal fun, which is far from the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard, not that the Melvins are slouches in that regard (they did record a metal version of “Dies Irae,” the opening theme to The Shining, once, never forget). This is the band’s debut EP, and whoa, I really like this already, at kickoff song “El Rudo,” a stoner-metal tune that’s got more personality in it than Queens Of The Stone Age have ever exhibited. It’s a cross between High On Fire on the instrumental end and Isis on the vocal side, mid-tempo NWOBHM stuff but not with anything annoying going on. That’s right, kids, you could do much, much worse than this, and as far as injecting a little fun, go check out “Forever in Retrograde” and its roots-punk-meets-black-metal fierceness. If your little brother is getting bullied at school, this record could change his life. Big thumbs up. A+

Adekunle Gold, Tio Tequila (Def Jam Records)

This three-song teaser for an album to be released on Def Jam in July bills this fellow as a “master of Afropop,” which may or may not be all that accurate; to me it can often sound like a slightly inebriated Rik Rok, retrofitted with too much Auto-Tune, engaged in a search for the bubble-pop radio-matrix that loves shoving stuff like this into the ears of preteens. Don’t get me wrong, his CV is impeccable: He grew up in the city of Lagos in Nigeria, specifically the area that’s slated to become Eko City, a massive development designed to help in stopping the erosion of the city’s coastline (the breezy, shuffley “Omo Eko” pays homage to the project). An established hit has already made the rounds, “Party No Dey Stop,” an irresistibly sweet but unabashedly Afrobeat-driven joint that’s further prettified by the presence of guest chanteuse Zinoleesky’s subtle soprano. A great summer jam for sure. A+

Playlist

• June 9 is our next CD-release-jubilee Friday, and there will be new albums released on that day, by the shipload, see the ship heading to the dock right now, filled from the “aft to the stern” with new albums! Thankfully the ship didn’t encounter an iceberg or a 100-foot tidal wave on its way to the dock, because someone would be making a movie about it right now, meaning we’d have to be subjected to more “acting” from Ryan Reynolds and the other three or four elite actors who are the only ones who get invited to make blockbuster movies these days, you know? What’s that? Yes, you’re right, I’m just jealous of play-to-the-back-of-the-theater hacks like Ryan Reynolds, and that’s why I became an art critic, just so I could work off my soul-deep envy, because if there’s anything I could get out of this life, it would be the starring role in a Paul Blart, Mall Cop: Who Blarted alongside Kristen Schaal or some other insanely gifted artiste lady. Satisfied? Yes, I became a rock critic because I wanted to hurl insults at bands and artistes who deserve much better treatment, and speaking of that, let’s go ruin the day for fans of Godflesh, whose new LP, Purge, is just coming out right now! Wait a second, I like this band, if I recall correctly, let me go look. Right, they’re not God Lives Underwater, a band I like, and they’re not Godsmack, a band I never really cared about because they were a local band that got a big record contract while my band was struggling to get a European record contract, so yes, I’m envious of them. While all this is going on, Godflesh rules, if you like stuff like Crowbar or Melvins, devastatingly heavy stuff. The new “single,” for lack of a better word, is “Nero,” comprising a nasty, caterwauling riff that evokes slow-motion math metal or emo. I’ll stamp this as 90 percent awesome and we can proceed with the rest of this.

• So King Krule is the stage name of an Englishman named Archy Ivan Marshall whose trip is indie, jazz fusion, hip-hop and other genres. His new album is Space Heavy, and the whole record is on YouTube if you want it and can find a YouTube-to-MP3 converter that won’t turn your computer into a doorstop. One of the tunes is “Seaforth,” a sunny but miserable little ditty that sounds like really sad Gorillaz or Crash Test Dummies, depending on how old you are. It’s got this feather-light half-unplugged guitar part that seems to go on forever and the whole thing is about as interesting as a potato-baking contest, so let’s drop this business and go on to something else, that’d be great.

• Like King Krule, Youth Lagoon is another pseudonym occasionally deployed by a millennial with a jones for bad indie rock, but you know what was great about today? My commute to the office was all green lights for once, and YouTube hasn’t been making me watch a bunch of Liberty Mutual commercials, they’re just letting these dumb songs play without making me wait, hence I’m receptive to this person’s music for the moment, so I’m listening to “Idaho Alien,” the new single from his forthcoming album Heaven Is A Junkyard. Maybe it’s owed to the fact that I hated that King Krule tune, but this one’s good overall, the dude sings kind of like Kim Carnes before she wrecked her voice. Ha ha, this guy could have at least tried not to make it so obvious that all the up-votes and comments are from the same bot farm, jeez Louise.

• We’ll close with The Boo Radleys, whose new album, Eight, includes the song “Seeker,” which sounds like Maroon 5 trying to do ska, and no, I can’t imagine what could be worse than that, for the record. — Eric W. Saeger

If you’re in a local band, now’s a great time to let me know about your EP, your single, whatever’s on your mind. Let me know how you’re holding yourself together without being able to play shows or jam with your homies. Send a recipe for keema matar. Message me on Twitter (@esaeger) or Facebook (eric.saeger.9).

Satoko Fujii, Torrent (Libra Records)

In this, her ninth solo album, jazz pianist Fujii explores “new musical territory in a completely improvised concert performance.” Usually the thought of jazz improv has me running for the exits at full bore (years ago I somehow became the central repository for that stuff and it came by the wooden pallet-load every month, all kinds of off-the-cuff noise that eventually led to my forsaking it for a few years). but the New York Times touted her as “an improviser of rumbling intensity and generous restraint,” which is, as always, college-boy-speak for “she’s good,” so here we are, indulging in a record consisting of noodlings Fujii rattled off during a recent concert setup. It’s assuredly an “artist album” in that she sees the piano not merely as a keyboard set but as something to be tinkered with: In “Cut the Painter” she blends weird noises made on the inside of the piano with lyrical melodies played on the keyboard. Elsewhere she plucks piano strings and whatnot in between delivering fantastic runs, morose sentiments and the usual ingredients. It’s a masterful thing if you’re willing to go off the beaten track. A+

Alcatrazz, Take No Prisoners (Silver Lining Music)

Waitwhat, you’re doing a fly-by, what’s even going on here, which Alcatrazz is this? I mean, there are two versions of Alcatrazz making records nowadays, one with Graham Bonnet, the dude who sang “God Blessed Video” in the mid-80s, a tune that almost single-handedly makes the case for hair-metal’s not being a complete waste of time. But yeah, it’s a mess here, folks, this is the Alcatrazz without Bonnet, and ha ha, look at that album title, it would have been cooler if they’d named it “Place Album Title Here,” which I’m sure has been done. Other than those two strikes, this album comes to the plate with my full attention and — um. Hideously generic stuff here, Udo Dirkschneider meets Bruce Dickinson vocals, power metal riffs out of a cereal box, etc. The gals from ’80s-girl-metal band Girlschool visit for a feat on “Don’t Get Mad Get Even,” I know not why. C

Playlist

• Spoiler alert, new albums will “hit the streets” on June 2, another lovely Friday filled with music and whatever! There will be good albums, bad albums, rock albums, Scandinavian folk-thrash albums, super-derivative albums and everything in between. Like the recently canceled Dr. Seuss once said, “My hat is old, my teeth are gold, I have an album I like to hold,” but what sort of albums will I be holding this week? That’s the ongoing mystery, one album, two albums, red album, blue album, will any of them be good, or will I tear off my white plastic earbuds in frustration like I always do and throw back three fingers of cheap 12-year-old multi-malt scotch just to forget that my ears once made contact with those — those horrible notes? I do not know, Sam I Am, so let’s try one of these albums on for size, how about — oh no, you’ve got to be kidding me, it’s a new album from talentless post-Iron Maiden frauds Avenged Sevenfold, called Life Is But A Dream, can’t I just review some TikToks from funny pot-smoking longboarders instead? Ack, here they are, with some dumb new song called “Nobody,” and the video features a cartoon skeleton and his family chilling in some dumb graveyard whatsis, and the tune is slow and doomy, but of course it gets really stupid and unusable when the singing starts, because, well, you know, it’s A7F or however you say it. Ack, ack, the singing, it’s like that horrible monster Dr. Seuss once said, “I do not like this one so well, all he does is yell, yell, yell; I will not have this one about, when he comes in I put him out,” in other words it’s time to depart these premises, for some better music, hopefully, but then again, how could it not be?

• Huh, this shouldn’t be too bad, it’s the millennials’ answer to Elton John, Ben Folds, with a new album called What Matters Most! From what I’ve heard of Ben Folds, it’s mostly been very musical but not really, you know, catchy, or whatever the kids call it these days — you know, “good” or whatnot. The whole album is up for sampling on YouTube, but the first single is “Winslow Gardens,” hold my hand and let’s listen together. OK, let go of my hand so I can shut this off, it’s just a twee song with a little bit of orchestration and Ben’s big dumb piano. It’s like Ben Kweller, or, as people used to say, “The Brady Bunch Band.” People need to stop listening to spineless, pointless nonsense like this, seriously, how can they even stand it.

• Yo, it’s none other than Cowboy Junkies, a band that has played at our beloved Tupelo Music Hall. They have a new album, called Such Ferocious Beauty, which will surely be decent, given that it’s not Avenged Sevenwhatever, but at this writing I am not seeing anything about their visiting Tupelo; in fact, the closest they’ll come to us is The Danforth Music Hall in Toronto, Canada, which is somewhere near the North Pole if I recall correctly. This album is their first one in five years, and the single, “What I Lost,” has kind of a 1960s-meets-Fiona Apple vibe or something like that, mildly depressing and strummy, it’s acceptable.

• And lastly we have Foo Fighters, a band that I have a newfound respect for after seeing a video of their bandleader Dave Whoever serving giant pots of food to a bunch of homeless people. More people should do that, you know? But Here We Are is the new album, and the whole thing is on YouTube for the moment, but we’ll focus on the kickoff track, “Rescued.” It’s got a jagged Pretenders vibe when it starts, but then it turns into their five-zillionth variation on “There Goes My Hero.” Everyone drink!

If you’re in a local band, now’s a great time to let me know about your EP, your single, whatever’s on your mind. Let me know how you’re holding yourself together without being able to play shows or jam with your homies. Send a recipe for keema matar. Message me on Twitter (@esaeger) or Facebook (eric.saeger.9).

The Waymores, Greener Pastures (Chicken Ranch Records)

This one comes with a backstory that’s kind of encouraging for artists slogging away in more remote, less arts-centric areas of the country. We’re talking about throwback-country/bluegrass stuff here, the real deal, and this duo’s success came about when they released a two-song demo featuring Marty Robbins’ “Don’t Worry” and Buck Owens’ “Under Your Spell.” Their hayseed sound is so close to Tammy and George’s that it caught the ear of actor Howard Zinn, who passed it along to a music producer buddy, Shel Talmy, a 1960s fixture who’d done The Who, Bowie and The Kinks among others. All of a sudden there were heavyweight session players all over the pair’s orbit, and this record, their third full-length, comes as a result of all that. Dave Pearlman (who’s worked with Merle Haggard, Hoyt Axton and all those guys) is on steel guitar, creating a large proportion of the magic; the songs weave a tapestry of old-school country and pop that’s at times reminiscent of Linda Ronstadt, Bonnie Raitt, that kind of thing. Good for them. A+

Michael Dease, The Other Shoe: The Music of Gregg Hill (Origin Records)

There are jazz-heads who read this space, watching like lonely lost puppies, ever hoping I’ll finally get back to giving the genre some love, and the guilt does weigh mildly heavy, so let’s do this one, from Georgia trombonist Dease, whose previous 15-odd records as a bandleader were mostly on Posi-Tone Records, with guest shots scattered in his oeuvre with the Dizzy Gillespie All-Star Big Band and others. Here he pays tribute to equally fruitful Michigan-raised jazz composer Gregg Hill, who grew up on swing and big band stuff as a kid and went on to cobble 150 pieces starting at age 39 (see? It’s never too late, folks). All About Jazz called this one of the year’s best LPs to date, to which I can only rejoin with a meek “sure, why not,” given that I’ve been such a bad apple this year (again, my apologies). Dease has rearranged some of this stuff, which may have led to its being more mathematically interesting; “Wake Up Call” evokes Monk and leads to what sounds like a post-bop outing for the most part. Flashes of keyboard brilliance stand out, but Dease does hold down the melodic focal points. Nice blend of echo-bop, for lack of a better term. A+

Playlist

• Onward, my scamps, on we go, to May 26 and the albums that will sally forward thence; the moon will enter its first quarter phase the next day, May 27, bringing with it laments of regret from the record-buying world, as they give a listen to the things they purchased this Friday! O Fortuna, no store returns on CDs that have been opened, abandon all hope ye who blah blah blah, so let’s do some reconnoitering, so your money won’t be used on musical nothingburgers, I am here to help you! Ha ha, look what’s first on the docket, a new album from the Spinal Tap of techno, Sparks, titled The Girl Is Crying In Her Latte, I can hardly wait! No, you know what, Sparks isn’t like Spinal Tap, they’re more like ManOWar, that band that used to dress up like Conan the Barbarian, like they have this stubborn fan base that insists their limp tunes are the best ever, because good taste can’t be taught to people, but it doesn’t matter because they’re already a parody of themselves, which leaves them impervious to snark attacks from mayhemic jerks like me, whose sense of duty calls on us to remind people that Sparks and ManOWar are really stupid bands and that it’s OK to give up on that one friend who believes otherwise; not everyone can be saved, is what I mean, like some people who voted for Vermin Supreme for president weren’t being ironic, they literally believed he was going to give everyone a pony or whatever it was. OK, now that I’m almost out of room for this nonsense, it’s time to go listen to the title track from this new Sparks album, and — wait, Cate Blanchett is in the dumb video? Hellooooo nurse, heart-eyes emoji, I’ve had a crush on that lady forever, let’s see if she can change my mind about Sparks! Oh, for Pete’s sake, no, she can’t, the tune is their usual Devo-krautrock with Cate Blanchett standing still throughout the video and breaking into a boomer dance every 30 seconds, this is so stupid that I wouldn’t be surprised if the Stupid Stuff Society sends Sparks a cease-and-desist order. Why on earth would someone even do this?

• Moving on, it looks like all of today’s “artists” have names that rhyme with “snarks,” because here we are with a new LP from Nigerian R&B/indie-folk lady Arlo Parks, titled My Soft Machine! It’s her second album; 2021’s Collapsed In Sunbeams suffered from a lack of touring owing to Covid, but it did chart pretty well everywhere. So let’s check out the new single, “Pegasus,” which includes a guest appearance from Los Angeles-based indie-folkie Phoebe Bridgers. Well, well, the song is really nice, sort of a trip-hop-pop hybrid recalling Kate Bush in mellow mode but with some drum glitch and stuff like that. Nothing wrong there, let’s push our luck and move on.

• Next, it’s More Photographs (A Continuum), the latest album from Kevin Morby, a Texan who was formerly with the bands Woods and The Babies and is eight albums into his solo trip as of this one, which I assume is a bunch of remixes lifted from his 2022 LP, Photographs. The single, “This Is A Photograph II,” is like a cross between Wilco and ’70s disco, and there’s lots of edge to it, believe it or not. Cool stuff, I can deal with it.

• And finally, we have Canadian hard-indie band The Dirty Nil with a new full-length, called Free Rein To Passions! Teaser single “Nicer Guy” is an amalgam of Weezer and Foo Fighters, which shouldn’t be too hard to imagine, and it’s pretty decent overall, because the singer sounds angry but awkward. Wow, I wasn’t mean to any bands this week, was I? Wait, no, I was, to Sparks, never mind.

If you’re in a local band, now’s a great time to let me know about your EP, your single, whatever’s on your mind. Let me know how you’re holding yourself together without being able to play shows or jam with your homies. Send a recipe for keema matar. Message me on Twitter (@esaeger) or Facebook (eric.saeger.9).

Gridfailure and Interstitia, Sunyata Ontology (Pax Aeternum Records)

Imaginative collaborative album from North Carolina-based Interstitia (the noise-rock nym adopted by Graham Scala) and New York-based Gridfailure (a solo project from David Brenner, also of Diminishing). This is underground aggro ambient, if I’m going to try to put a finger on it; the aim is to evoke visions of “a disparate not-too-distant dystopian America, with military/espionage tactics, civil unrest, off-the-grid cults and militant factions, covert government police, the takeover of artificial intelligence, and the looming threat of nuclear catastrophe more realistic than ever.” As always, some of that isn’t reflected in the offerings here, but it does deliver a lot of grimy, spooky noise. Opener “Call Of The Black Hand” sounds like an electric shaver fitted with phase-shifter effects, which is in the ballpark; “Omega Agency” is more along the lines of Rhys Fulber’s Noise Unit project, meaning it’ll appeal to goths and people like that. Worth your while if you like apocalyptic underground-DJ tuneage. A-

Esther Rose, Safe To Run (New West records)

I can hardly believe the hype that’s washing over the landscape with regard to the fourth rather pedestrian country-indie album from this New Orleans-based chanteuse; pound for pound, all the praise from Pitchfork Media and whatnot has reached the same level of ridiculousness — OK, in an indie sense — that Katy Perry’s first record rode in on. I mean it’s all fine and everything, a little bit ’90s-moonbat pop, a Natalie Merchant aftertaste and whatnot, wrapped in four-chord Joni Mitchell-ness and such. This isn’t to say it’s bad or anything — I wouldn’t dare at this point — but it’s not everything you may have heard it is. Lyrically it’s about running and staying in a literal-but-really-not sense, and in order to enhance that vibe she brings in Alynda Segarra (from Hurray for the Riff Raff) for a tune, in a move that the pressed-for-way-too-many-descriptors Pitchfork wonk saw as genius, being that both ladies make albums that “juggle the personal and the public so well.” Wheel reinvented? Um, no. But it’s nice, and all that stuff. B+

Playlist

• May 19 is a magical day, not just because it’s a Friday but also because many new rock ’n’ roll albums will be “unleashed” upon the unsuspecting masses, who will buy them in bulk just so the “artists” who made those albums won’t yell at them or whatever! Since it’s getting near barbecue season, when everyone needs good wholesome, dishwasher-safe, almost-sort-of-rockin’ tunes to listen to while the kids run around with Super Soakers until the dads flip out and yell, we should probably first talk about the new album from Dave Matthews Band, Walk Around The Moon! I’m sure the title track will be a terrific example of modern AOR radio rock, so let’s go listen, ah, here we are, it’s a live version! Well I’ll be horn-swaggled, it’s more like Blue Oyster Cult than the “serious version of Barenaked Ladies” twaddle he usually puts out. His voice is trashed, so maybe the vocal line is OK, but I can’t guarantee it

• Good lord, I’d almost forgotten the fact that quirk-folk superstar Sufjan Stevens even existed! Note to self, I really must either begin to care more about quirk-indie-electronica-folkies or stop pretending that I do! Whatever, as always, the fascinating thing about his new album (Reflections, which will be released in a few hours) is trying to guess which weird outfit Stevens will wear during his concerts. Will he be “owl boy,” “Good & Plenty-striped licorice boy,” or will he suit up in some sort of variation on the stupidness 1980s-era Elton John used to wear when he really wanted people to stay away from him? I don’t care, but maybe a quick distracted listen to the new single, “Ekstasis” will do the trick! Well, that’s interesting, the tune is a neoclassical piano piece with a few edgy, dissonant moves and whatnot, so if neoclassical piano music played by someone who dresses up like an owl is your jam, it’s your lucky day!

• Endlessly annoying 1960s songwriter Paul Simon is a million years old, and he was once the singing partner of Art Garfunkel before trying to become Jimmy Buffett or whatever that whole deal was. He was married to Carrie Fisher for a year, right after she played Princess Leia in Return of the Jedi, and once she calmed down from that whole experience, she realized that she’d married Paul Simon and pleaded insanity or whatever she did to get out of it. Simon’s new full-length is titled Seven Psalms, not to be confused with the Nick Cave album, which literally came out last year and hence Simon should have known to name his album something else, and he has not released a single as of this writing, just an album trailer on YouTube, obviously just to irritate me, and yes, it worked. Yes, there he is, hanging in the studio, singing some stuff. Yuck, whatever this teaser song is, it’s all serious and maudlin, with some lyrics about getting someone to forgive him. There is a string section and a choir and it pretty much sucks, let’s finish off this column before I lose my marbles.

• And finally, ack, some people have literally no shame, because here we go, folks, look, David Crosby from Crosby Stills Nash & Young just recently died, but without missing a beat, here comes Graham Nash, the most useless one out of the bunch, with a new album, called Now! If you still drive a 1962 Dodge Dart with peace signs on it, you know that Nash is the skinny English dude who wrote like only one song that the other guys could tolerate playing at Woodstock and whatever else, the ground-breaking ceremony for the Great Pyramid of Giza or whatever other hippie festivals those guys played during the Swingin’ Sixties. The single, “A Better Life,” is flower-power ukulele-folk, and I swear I’ve heard it before, but all the weakest songs on CSNY’s 4 Way Street were written by this guy, so it’s all a wash, whatevs.

If you’re in a local band, now’s a great time to let me know about your EP, your single, whatever’s on your mind. Let me know how you’re holding yourself together without being able to play shows or jam with your homies. Send a recipe for keema matar. Message me on Twitter (@esaeger) or Facebook (eric.saeger.9).