Author: Eric Saeger

Glitter Wizard, Kiss The Boot (Kitten Robot Records)

Sure, these guys are good for what they do, which, for over a decade, has been sort of a cross between T-Rex and the first two Kiss albums (stop cringing). This is a crew of five dudes from San Francisco who are into combining psychedelica, old glam rock, punk, and (sort of) prog in order to table a That 70s Show party vibe. The lead guitarist is decent, reaching for the acid-rock stratosphere with squealy, pinched notes around every corner, but what I actually like best is that the backing vocals are a complete mess, probably having been recorded on the cheap with the remaining 20 minutes of recording studio time. I’d venture to say that fans of Black Lips would be jiggy with this, but in the end, if this bunch sticks with this off-the-rack lo-fi engineering, they could probably end up putting out a single that ends up replacing Gary Glitter’s “Rock ’n’ Roll” at football games. Do I expect that to happen? Well, no, but who knows. A

The Church, The Hypnogogue (Communicating Vessels Records)

I’d say everyone who was club-hopping in the ’80s has heard of this Australian New Wave quintet, but being able to name one of their songs is a whole ’nother trick. If you rack your brain hard enough you might come up with the title of the one song that charted in the U.S., “Under The Milky Way,” which was sort of like what it might have sounded like if Lou Reed had stolen “Eleanor Rigby.” Anyway, they’re back, still led by bass player and singer Steve Kilbey, and they do seem to have evolved a little. They’re still purveyors of a lay-back-and-drink vibe; for instance, “No Other You” has the same sort of laid-back rawk energy as Train’s “Drops of Jupiter” but with a more, you know, throwback New Wave sound. The title track tables the same sort of sleepiness but takes something of a Savage Republic approach. Not sure why I’d ever listen to this record again, but you do you. A

Playlist

• A lot has come in lately, so let’s play a little catch-up with some releases from earlier this month, that’d be great. May as well start with So Much (For) Stardust, the new album from emo-rock heroes Fall Out Boy. I saw those dudes open up for someone years ago, I think it was Motley Crue, and they were only provided around a quarter of the stage on which to move around and sing their little emo songs. You’ve heard them before for sure, probably at a Chuck E Cheese or someplace else that has a lot of little kids running around and spazzing to barely punk-ish music that’s sort of like the Velveeta cheese version of Iron Maiden, i.e. the prototype for Imagine Dragons, like that one song of theirs that always plays over loudspeakers when you least expect it, “My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark,” with its spazzy millennial-whoop “oh-oh-oh” verse and matching chorus; it’s actually OK now that it’s too old for anyone to really care about anymore, like if you told a 9-year-old it was heavy metal they’d have no choice but to believe you. So this Illinois-based band, which originally tried to be taken seriously in the Chicago punk scene before choosing to rip off Taking Back Sunday and all those guys, wants you to know about this new album and its single, “Heartbreak Feels So Good,” a totally worthless, biodegradably recyclable hunk of music-trash that sounds like Dashboard Confessional trying to rewrite the main theme to Footloose, but first, at the top of the tune’s video, they insist that you watch them “pull a prank” by pretending to kidnap Weezer’s Rivers Cuomo from in front of an ice cream stand or something, but it all hilariously backfires and a bunch of girls start chasing them around like they’re The Monkees, and the total effect is like watching early MTV, when the world got its first insights into how rock stars shouldn’t try to make comedy videos. Talk about awful stuff, let’s move on.

• Borderline-goth-pop pioneers and closet Ultravox wannabes Depeche Mode are back, with their 15th album, Memento Mori. There are approximately 3,291 goth bands I like more than Depeche Mode, but owing to their rabid fan base, I think I can feign interest in them for a short little writeup here, so let’s go. David Gahan and Martin Gore are still in the band, but that’s about it, not that the fact that the band is barely Depeche Mode anymore could possibly detract from their sound, and remember, I don’t care in the first place, but never fear, people who love this band, literally nothing has changed: The single, “Ghosts Again,” may as well have come out in 1987, yes, it’s that dated. You know, Pet Shop Boys are literally a hundred times more listenable than this stuff, even though they’re also really old people, but if you insist, go ahead and pretend it’s relevant, I cannot prevent it.

• You’d probably have heard of British synthpop lady Ellie Goulding, but for the most part she’s really only popular in other countries. This is typical, of course, because the only singers Americans care about are Taylor Swift and Willie Nelson. Her new album, Higher Than Heaven, is coming out this Friday and it includes “Let It Die,” a Michael Jackson-ish tune that showcases her Dolly Parton-esque soprano. It’s OK.

• Lastly, look, it’s those three little Japanese teenage girls, Babymetal, with another album, The Other One! Did you even know they existed? I didn’t, but now I know that there is a band that combines Slayer with happy, super-high-pitched singing that would be more at home on a joke album. These little rascals have played shows in which Rob Halford from Judas Priest got up and sang with them. I give up.

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).

Personal Blend, Inhale and Release (self-released)

Rochester, N.Y.-based seven-piece reggae-rock band for parties, bar mitzvahs and rock clubs, if those things even still exist. Surf, reggae, rock, dub and Rasta are the game that’s afoot here; I’d agree with the press blurb that pronounces these songs “complex arrangements” featuring digital drum rhythms, punchy horn lines and ambient vocal melodies, but really, how complex would you want your drinking music to be? OK, maybe something along the lines of Disco Biscuits, Minus The Bear or geez, I dunno, there are times when these guys go off on a prog tangent (“Skin Deep” is quite priceless). It’s pretty tight for sure, probably owing to the machine-made drums. Overall there’s a psychedelic vibe to this stuff, I suppose, but this band is dedicated to standard-issue riddims even when they throw in arena-rock curveballs like spaghetti Western guitars for mariachi-esque effect (“Watch Your Step”). Nothing wrong here. A

Walking Bombs, Spiritual Dreams Above Empty Promises (self-released)

I’m told that DIY punk dude Morgan Y. Evans — not to be confused with country music’s Morgan Evans, who recently went through a painful divorce — will be releasing several albums this year, including this one, a set of lo-fi creepy tunes “about trying not to lose hope and to remain centered despite the world’s sorrows and perils.” Written just after the death of Evans’ mother, it deals with topics like mortality, spirituality, individuality, gun violence, love and being startled awake by technology. It definitely has an early Nick Cave-in-gloom-mode feel as it labels out sentiments intended to fix someone (probably the artist himself, it would seem), for instance how we need to remember that cynicism is not as powerful as our deeper hopes, dreams and empathy. If you have any love for the Throbbing Lobster era, there’s a lot here to like; I’d offer Swans as a comparison but it’s a little too speedy (as in midtempo) for that. Same ballpark, though. A

Playlist

• New albums will magically appear this Friday, March 31, so that you can buy them, like a good doobie, for your music collection! Let’s see here, we’ve got Packs, an Ottawa, Canada-based indie quartet that’s fronted by some art school slacker named Madeline Link, who decided that her chosen career of making papier mache animals or whatever she makes out of papier mache wasn’t as spiritually fulfilling (i.e. profitable) as making awful music to go with it. Anyway, Packs’ new album, Crispy Crunchy Nothing, is just about here, and man, the new single is so awful I can’t even comprehend it, like, if they’d at least add a weird Clinic-style organ player it’d be less bad than Broadcast, but no, they’re truly out to annoy me as much as they can. It’s like Pavement, but even more Pavement-y than the average human constitution is built to withstand. My, what wonderfully off-key guitars you have, Packs! Did they hold open auditions for the very worst musicians in Canada, or — you know, I mean, how could a band even be this bad? This junk is out of style anyway, if you ask me, like I really doubt Generation Z wants nothing more out of the party lives than listening to junk that sounds like it was rejected from the Juno soundtrack, you know? I was watching some “Why New Music Sucks” influencer video where some millennial girl was trying to explain that “sorry, older people, tastes change” (Really?! Someone call the New York Times!), and that now, in her wizened wisdom, she’s figured out that Zoomers want a mixture of styles, can you imagine such a thing? This means that when Zeppelin mixed early 1900s-era American folk with heavy metal, that didn’t count as a “mixture of styles,” nor did it count when her own generation (when it wasn’t listening to truly horrible bands like Slint and Franz Ferdinand) was guzzling purple drank and watching YouTubes of Megadeth vs. Pointer Sisters mashups. I mean, I’m confused, guys. I’m confused about a lot of things, actually, but I’m not confused about how awful Pavement was, nor am I convinced that garbagey trash like this Packs album has any redeeming musical qualities at all. But really, bon appetit if listenability doesn’t matter when you’re compiling your daily Soundcloud. (Note to self: How did this ever happen?)

• Great, time once again to try to remember the difference between Deerhoof, Deer Tick and Deerhunter, oh that’s right, I don’t care. No, I’m kidding, Deerhoof is the indie band who did — let’s see, blah blah blah — never mind, no one reading this has ever heard any of their songs, unless they were at a frat party in 2005 maybe? So anyway, their fast-approaching new disk, titled Miracle-Level, features the single “Sit Down, Let Me Tell You a Story,” and boy is it awful. Absolutely terrible.

• Right, right, so James Holden is a British weird-beard electro DJ, and his new LP, This Is A High Dimensional Space Of All Possibilities, has a new single making the rounds, called “Common Land,” which is pretty cool, some bizarre but accessible noise loops and a neat breakbeat. I have heard much worse songs before in my life.

• Lastly, let’s get the new Hold Steady album, The Price of Progress, out of the way so I don’t have to think about oi-rock again this week. Hm, wait, this new single, “Sideways Skull” is OK if you like noise-rock. It’s like Frank Black playing for early Big Black, a comparison you’d appreciate if you had any shred of hope that rock ’n’ roll might rise again (it won’t, but that hasn’t stopped it from trying once in a while).

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).

Creye, III: Weightless (Frontiers Music)

Some epic melodic metal from Sweden here, in the vein of bands like Heat and whatnot. Their sound is even cleaner than Trans Siberian Orchestra, if you can even conceive of such a thing, and that makes this stuff come off as a bit one-dimensional, but not, I assure you, in the area of wonky musicianship, which is what should really matter, and I’m well aware of that. But still, in between all the (very complicated and clever) riffing and all that, I was really hoping to hear some bad-assery, something messy or slightly dangerous, but it didn’t really happen for me. Now, all that means is that I wouldn’t play this in the car, but I can still heartily recommend it if you ever wanted to hear a smarter, more prog-rock version of Iron Maiden, or at least an Iron Maiden that sounds freshly scrubbed for dinner, like White Lion or some such hair-metal thingie. But again, the selling point is that these guys can really play. A

Public Serpents, The Bully Puppet (SBAM Records)

And here we have a ska-punk band from New Jersey. I didn’t even know that was still a thing, you know? What’s that? No, I was referring to New Jersey, not ska-punk. But anyway, folks, all seriousness aside, this band’s leader, who goes by the name of Skwert, has had a rough time of it over the last few years, enduring incarceration, homelessness and the end of his marriage, so if you like ska-punk, and who actually does, this would be a wise investment, as maybe Skwert could take some time off to rest his voice, because right now these tunes sound like a really drunk Ozzy Osbourne singing for the Suicide Machines except the horn section is better. There’s really nothing stunningly innovative here, not that you’d want innovative music if the only reason you’d ever even sit through a ska band would be to get to the three 19-year-olds playing hamster-wheel straight-edge stuff after them. Side question: Do people still listen to Sublime anymore, or was that just a giant troll? A

Playlist

• March 17 is a Friday, which means a day of new CD releases, because that’s just how it works, folks. It used to be Tuesdays when all the albums would be released, if I recall correctly, but the record industry changed the traditional release weekday to Friday in their infinite wisdom, after figuring out that Fridays are a lot better, because that’s the day rock ’n’ roll fans figure is the most safe for partaking in day-drinking and puffing wacky tobaccy during work hours, and when quittin’ time comes around they leave work completely shnockered, burn rubber out of the parking lot and just randomly go buy albums at Strawberries and Bradlees and Woolworths. OK maybe not anymore, which only brings up the question, “Is music still cool if all you have to do to obtain it is download it from a pirate site or whatnot?” I don’t think so, but little shining points of light pop out of nowhere now and then, for instance this week’s spotlight new LP, Fantasy, from excellent French weird-beard soundsystem M83, whom you may know if you’re either young or were a fan of the Ovation network’s TV show Versailles (M83 did the impossibly epic theme song) until its untimely demise in 2018. I’m sure this’ll mark a high point for these guys, unless they’ve run out of ideas like everybody else, and toward answering that pressing question I’ll venture into the YouTube, to see what I can hear. I’ll bet you anything that by now they’re ready to make some real money out of their success, so there’s some edgy diva like Zola Jesus guesting on a single that you’ll hear playing at — well, I don’t know, where do people even hear music being played nowadays? Roller skating rinks? Red Lobster? Seriously, now that rock is completely dead, and there’s nothing left of the club scene except for bored-looking (and honestly bored) 20-somethings standing around listening to chopped-and-screwed versions of “My Humps” or whatever, who’s going to buy this awesome new M83 album? I’ll leave that here, with a scratching-my-head emoji added as emphasis, for you to puzzle over, but meanwhile, the group’s new single, “Oceans Niagara” is completely epic and cool, a really buzzy electro dance-beat infused with an urgent, energetic, loud-ass multi-voiced chorus. M83 are still the best, don’t even argue with me.

• Unknown Mortal Orchestra, a band from Auckland, New Zealand, is all about the psychedelic rock ’n’ roll, just like our good buddies, whose name takes up nearly a full line of column space, King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard. There’s something fishy about all the awesome stoner-rock coming from “Down Under,” like this new album from UMO, titled V, but either way, these fellas are based in Portland, Oregon, now, so we’ll see if being far away from King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard had any negative effect on these new songs. I’m test-driving the new single, “Hunnybee,” and it’s not stoner-rock at all, it’s chill soul-pop, like Bon Iver trying to be Jamie Lidell. It’s OK I guess.

• Speaking of weird people with Warp record contracts, it’s Yves Tumor, with his new one, Praise A Lord Who Chews But Which Does Not Consume. The rollout track, “God Is a Circle,” is driven by loud, muddy bass, mumbled vocals and industrial samples, I like it just fine really.

• Lastly, it’s Black Honey, a U.K. indie band that’s gone through a few name changes, so no, I already don’t take them seriously at all. A Fistful Of Peaches is their new album, and the video for the song “OK” has a seizure warning (I’m not taking that seriously either). The tune is like Foo Fighters but with a vampy girl singer. It’s cool overall.

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).

Treedeon, New World Hoarder (Exile On Mainstream Records)

Recently I watched an interview with former Black Sabbath singer Ronnie James Dio. In it, he said that it was “ridiculous” for a band to take a couple of years to finish an album. I’m reminded of that owing to the fact that this German sludge-metal band hasn’t put out an album in five years. I suppose there are reasons for that; making albums sure isn’t a way to make money if you’re unknown, but come on guys, five years? So, given the circumstances, I expected Melvins- or Boris-level mud-rock from this one, but that’s certainly not what this is. OK, maybe there’s a little Boris in there, but that’s not what they’re aiming for, it’s more a Neurosis-meets-Sunn(((O))) trip. It’s super-slow, made of white noise, bliss ringouts that last forever, and some schlocky vocal effects that made me think of the sort-of-funny devil scenes in that old show Sleepy Hollow, to be honest. It is most decidedly meh. B

Kiji Suedo, Hosek (Hobbes Music)

The tuneage of this Osaka, Japan-raised techno DJ cater to an adult audience, but not quite as mature as his most common (and definitely overused) Recommended-If-You-Like comparison, Theo Parrish, whose Detroit “beatdown” style has more soul to it. Some less refined listeners will probably write this off as a bit too noisy, but if you’re not tired of the same-same 20-year-old house-bomp sounds that have lately been microwaved for use by Britney Spears and all those people, you might want to re-evaluate your taste as it is. On the other hand, if you can deal with glitch (or acid jazz, while I’m at it), you should pick this up right away, as the overall feel is elite-level deep house with electronic ratchets, clonks and fat-but-not-too-fat bass lines all coming together to produce euphoric rhythms that are only barely robotic. The grooves morph as they go, evoking fractals moving in slow motion; this is truly advanced stuff. B

Playlist

• Like every Friday, March 10 will be a day for new albums to appear like magic, bringing messages of joy and hope and melodic mediocrity to the masses! It feels like longer than two years since we’ve heard anything from melancholia-pop chanteuse Lana Del Rey, but there it is, this thing here says Blue Banisters came out in 2021, and her upcoming ninth album, Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Boulevard, is indeed coming out this week. Nothing remarkable about this one; Jack Antonoff (a.k.a. Bleachers) is involved, as always, and there are curveball guests again, such as Jon Batiste (the creative director of the National Jazz Museum in Harlem), SYML (formerly of the indie band Barcelona), Riopy, Father John Misty and rapper Tommy Genesis. In 2019 Billboard included Del Rey’s smarmy 2011 song “Born to Die” as one of the 100 songs that defined the 2010s (seems incredibly far away already, doesn’t it, like the music industry could already do a rebirth movement just to see if anyone had been paying attention in the first place). Anyhow, here we are, staring down the barrel of this album’s title track, which finds our heroine plumbing the lower echelons of gloom with a slow piano line, some sexlessly torchy stream-of-half-consiousness vocalizing, and all the other ingredients that will lead to her eventually contributing a title song for a James Bond film. (No, knock it off, there’ll be another James Bond movie, you can’t seriously believe they won’t, just try not to forget that Adele did the best one.) (And no, Lana Del Rey is no Adele, and never will be.)

• But wait, there’s another Rey, but this one’s a “Ray,” namely Fever Ray, with their new full-length, Radical Romantics! Ray is of course the stage name of Swedish singer Karin Elisabeth Dreijer, a long-standing trip-hop/electropop fixture who tends to bore people to tears, for instance the poor sap who had to sit through the film Dirty Diaries, “a collection of feminist pornographic short films,” which they soundtracked. “Appropriate but repetitive,” said the writer from Swedish newspaper Smålandsposten, in between snores, but that’s all water under the bridge, let’s just check out this new set of songs, specifically the single, “Kandy,” the video for which features Ray wearing Riff Raff makeup. The song is sort of a tribal-electro thing, basically bereft of any melodic direction, but do go add it to your Spotify if you don’t like nice things.

• Barf barf barf, it’s all-time fedora-rock champion Van Morrison, with Moving On Skiffle, his first album since oh who cares, may I remind you people that this human is fully responsible for the song “Brown-Eyed Girl,” also known as the national anthem for corporate human resources personnel who can’t dance. I know that I will not like his new single, “I’m Movin’ On,” but nevertheless I’ll — wait a second, this isn’t all that bad, actually, sort of like a cross between Bo Diddley and the “Banana Boat” song, like, someone’s playing a rasp, and Van is singing like he’s casually looking for big black tarantulas in his bowl of fruit.

• Ha ha oh come on, Miley Cyrus has a new album, titled Endless Summer Vacation, and I, a seasoned journalist, am supposed to talk about it? Here? Yep, looks like that’s how we’ll wrap up this week’s column, by talking about a Miley Cyrus record. Right, so is she trying to be Metallica again, or is she back to being an emotionally cracked pop diva again? Well, somewhere in the middle, it looks like: “Flowers” is your basic Lorde tuneage with a sample from “I Will Survive.” Why do people encourage this, seriously?

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).

Mona Mur, Teen Icon (Give/Take Records)

Having kicked off her rebelliously edgy career during the punk explosion of the ’80s, this German-born sort-of-icon has, through the years, collaborated with such artists as FM Einheit, Marc Chung and Alex Hacke of Einstürzende Neubauten, which places her in the position of fronting as an early prototype of Zola Jesus, or a female aggro-industrial William Shatner, take your pick. She put out an album called Snake Island last year, which had some good S&M club vibes, not that it takes a huge amount of talent to cobble together something that sounds Rammstein-ish, and that takes us to now, and this two-sided single, wherein she covers two songs, Nirvana’s “Smell Like Teen Spirit,” and Siouxsie And The Banshees’ “Icon.” Just quickly, the latter tune goes down easier than the former, as the slowed-down “Teen Spirit” is about two minutes too long. The Siouxsie tune works better, what with its being buried in effects. This is a novelty record for goths, basically. B

Ledfoot & Ronni Le Tekrø, Limited Edition Lava Lamp (TBC Records)

I had Ledfoot (a.k.a. Tim Scott or Footless), an American singer-songwriter and 12-string guitarist who’s had tunes covered by Bruce Spirngsteen and Sheena Easton, confused with current Lynyrd Skynyrd guitarist Rickey Medlocke, mostly because they look quite alike, scrawny, older scarecrow dudes with gray hair. Meanwhile, Le Tekrø is the Norwegian guitarist who founded the hair-metal band TNT. I was expecting a lot of blues-rawk that was long past its sell-by date, but no, apparently what brought these guys together was a love of Dire Straits, or maybe Stealers Wheel, seeing as how this record’s opening track, “Little Rosie,” brings a vibe that’s as close to “Stuck in the Middle with You” as anything I’ve heard in, well, ever. I mean, this is a mixed bag of vintage AM radio stuff, with “Crying’” checking in with a sound that combines Willie Nelson with Roy Orbison. A valiant effort, and I’m sure they enjoyed themselves. A

Playlist

• A whole wagonload of CDs will hit your stores and pirate radio stations this Friday, March 3, so beware the Ides of March, as we enter into literally the worst month of the year, with its teaser warm days that suddenly turn into “one last howling blizzard” that’re always followed by 10 straight days of rain, sleet, grayness, and the realization that you didn’t have enough money to pay all your February bills, and so you eat nothing but Beefaroni for a few weeks and everything feels hopeless and then suddenly the Easter Bunny shows up and you heave a sigh of relief, knowing that it’s just about warm enough to say “who cares about rent anyway” and pack a knapsack and go live under the Interstate 93 overpass.

You know how it is, am I right, but meanwhile there are albums to mention, like Ignore Grief, from Xiu Xiu, the three-person California-based experimental art-rock band whose oeuvre is up to 13 albums now, as of this one, which is the band’s first sine 2021’s Oh No, a record made up entirely of weird duets, for whatever reason. Anyhow, they have a new band member as of now, namely David Kendrick, who was formerly with Sparks and Devo, which is probably why he looks as old as Santa Claus. But never mind that, let’s see if I can tolerate more than a minute of the teaser single “Maybae Baeby,” I doubt it but let’s just see. OK, this is just noise nonsense, a bunch of clanging wind-chime things or whatever, all while some lady recites some deconstructionist manifesto about how everything is sooo confusing and awful. I’d expound further on all this, but my stomach’s had about enough of it for today.

• OK, very good, so next up is The National Parks, with their fifth album, 8th Wonder. This American folk-pop band is from Provo, Utah, a slightly underrated city that’s known for — well, Mormonism and a few pockets of enthusiastic anarchists to balance things out. For the last couple of years the band has gone in a more pop direction, but meanwhile they also embarked on a “Campfire Tour” in which they played intimate shows in small venues, all to prove that they haven’t made up their minds as to what they want to be when they grow up, or some such. Right, so I’m listening to the title track from this new album, and it’s very light and wimpy, like if Guster were possessed by Ben Kweller. It has all the rebellious antiestablishmentarian gravitas of the Brady Bunch Band, but that’s OK, because we can always use a band that begs to be ignored.

• Kali Uchis, a Virginia-born R&B-reggaeton-whatever diva whose real name is Karly-Marina Loaiz, is releasing her third full-length on Friday, Red Moon In Venus. Uchis guested on a couple of Gorillaz songs on their 2017 Humanz album, and her second, Sin Miedo, album did pretty well. The new tune, “I Wish you Roses,” would fit in fine in your Spotify between Lana Del Rey and Mitski; it’s OK overall.

• We’ll close with — good grief, what even is this, Daisy Jones & The Six is a fictional band in a real TV show of the same name, about a Fleetwood Mac-style band in the 1970s, except there’s a real album out, called Aurora, which has a plodding, maudlin single titled “Another Love.” The dude singer sounds like Peabo Bryson a little. Have fun with this nonsense, haters of good music.

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).

Nite Skye, Vanishing (Sonic Ritual Records)

I’m like 100 percent positive I’ve talked about this father-son duo before, unless it was someone else. This is their debut album, which doesn’t jibe with my (probably faux) memory, but anyway, here they are, ex-Film School vocalist-guitarist Nyles Lannon and his 12-year-old boy Skye on the drum kit, stomping out the shoegaze/dream-pop vibes. You may have heard of Film School but I haven’t; they were a shoegaze act back in the day, so Nyles is a good dad for Skye to have picked, no question. Some very listenable stuff, particularly if your outdated tastes run to Tangerine Dream sans any krautrock elements, which is what album opener “Dream State” is about. “Guided By A Hand” is even more ’80s-ish, like Raveonettes without all the annoying performative noise. “Doing Time” finally brings us to the shoegaze subject that the record was supposed to be about in the first place; it’s not a wildly original tune but like everything else here it’s got plenty going for it. A

Charming Disaster, Super Natural History (Sonic Ritual Records)

This year’s full-length entry from the Brooklyn, N.Y.-based goth-folk duo, with Ellia Bisker on ukulele and Jeff Morris on guitar. I liked their 2022 record, Our Lady of Radium, a concept album focused on Marie Curie’s ghost, and that’s how they remain here, inspired by the gothic humor of Edward Gorey and Tim Burton, the noir storytelling of Raymond Chandler, traditional murder ballads and old-time cabaret. I like that these two really take their trip seriously; they’re releasing an “oracle deck” of cards similar to a tarot deck, which is brilliant strategy when you’re singing about monsters and ghosts like they do here again, although they have more musicians helping this time around, which makes for a more Built To Spill- or Lou Reed-style vibe, all told, more of a lo-fi post-punk thing. It’s goth-con stuff of course; they’ve opened for such good fits as Dresden Dolls and Rasputina. Nothing wrong here. A

Playlist

• Our next general CD-release date is this Friday, Feb. 24, as the awful winter starts running out of gas forever. LOL, remember when we thought January was just going to be an early spring and some of you were walking around in cargo shorts, remember that? And then it was a frozen ice storm the week of the 24th, and each shovelful of slush weighed 80 pounds? I can’t wait for that to be over, but in the meantime, there are albums we need to discuss, and we’ll start with the one that needs the least introductory verbiage, Adam Lambert’s new album High Drama, heading our way this very minute! Lambert is of course the Star Search version of Freddie Mercury in the current lineup of the classic rock band Queen, sort of; he has to share the singing duties with Paul Rodgers, who sang for Bad Company before they started putting out decent tunes like “No Smoke Without A Fire,” the only “Bad Co” song I like. Where were we, right, so Lambert is considered by many non-singing producers and non-singing musicians to be one of the best singers in the world, and I refuse to get trolled into an argument about that, so let’s have a listen to what’s on the new album, his first since 2020’s Velvet, which gave us “Feel Something,” a crooner ballad that’s so antiseptic that it sounded as if it had to get approval from some random Today show audience before it was released to the five people who actually bought the album. I’m hoping to hear a little originality in his new single, which is — wait, it’s a cover song, “Holding Out for a Hero,” that old Bonnie Tyler tune. He sings good, of course, and he dressed his band in Daft Punk helmets for some reason, maybe just so he’d have a reason to use a Daft Punk-y beat on a song from Footloose that should have been forgotten in 1985. But do have at it, whoever buys this dude’s albums.

• Radiohead drummer Philip Selway releases a new album on Friday, titled Strange Dance. That’s the only neutral thing I have to say on the matter, given that I can’t stand Radiohead, but I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and do the dance anyway with this thing, because I am a professional at this. The single, “Check For Signs Of Life,” starts off with a slow, rainy, melancholy acoustic piano line — good lord this guy has an awful voice — and leads me to think that he had Zero 7 or maybe Portishead in mind when he wrote this song, and then it slowly becomes a ripoff of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” but more upbeat (what isn’t?). Anyway, no idea why anyone would want to make an album with this song on it, but voila.

• English singer and bass player Gina Birch founded post-punk rock band The Raincoats in 1977, right after she saw a Slits concert (today I learned that The Slits have been around since forever, how about that). Her new solo album, I Play My Bass Loud, is on the way this Friday. The title track is interesting and survivable enough, fitted with a subterranean, urban groove, some agreeable ’80s-ish art rock, and a weird, mocking vocal line from Birch that’s all doused in patch effects and that kind of thing. It’s not hard stuff like The Slits, if you’re wondering, but it’s still no-wave in my book, and besides, I doubt she’s shooting for actual punk these days anyway.

• And finally we have Gorillaz, a cartoon band whose appeal never struck me, not that I feel guilty about it. Cracker Island is the band’s new album, and the title track has a pretty neat electro beat, kind of goth-krautrock-buzzy, to be more specific. I’ve heard worse.

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).