Author: Eric Saeger

Gogol Bordello, Solidaritine (Cooking Vinyl Records)

I swear, one of the few remaining genres I can still consistently stomach is European-folk-rooted punk. Have you ever been disappointed by Korpiklaani or any of those bands? Never mind, I already know you haven’t, like, who could? It’s drunken noise that’s so sweaty and smelly you can’t help holding your nose and bobbing your head up and down to it, and that brings us to this New York City-based outfit that’s been putting out albums since 1999’s Voi-La Intruder. By all rights Solidaritine should be their supernova, given that most if not all of them are Ukrainian, but yes, this band’s putting out a political punk album right now is definitely good business. Typical Ramones/Bad Brains rattle-bang hardcore here for the most part, Slayer meets Borat, you know the routine. A

Laufey, The Reykjavík Sessions (Awal Recordings)

From Ukrainian folk-punk to Icelandic wombat-jazz, we’ve got all the bases covered today, my friends. I dunno, Fader loved this record, and I’m fine with it in the main I guess; her sold-out tour, which took her to Boston’s 500-seat Sinclair in September, compels me to take her a little more seriously than I might, and I’m in a lousy mood right now, so when I say she sounds a bit hacky, you might not want to take it to heart; I’m simply referring to her rather uneventful, unadventurous voice. She’s a good songwriter, though, specializing in a weirdly edgy but quite palatable style that makes the songs sound like they’d been written during mid-century romantic periods; she dabbles in things like bossa nova and cowboy-saloon player piano at odd but fitting moments. She plays piano and cello here at turns, exhibiting some serious musicianship, not that the songs really call for it. Music to drink coffee by, sure. A

Playlist

• We’re up against Friday, Oct. 14, gang, a whole bunch of new albums coming at us in a burst of crazy, hoping for your holiday gift-buying dollar (what, your Halloween skeletons are wearing Santa suits, come on!) and we’ll probably have to start with the ’90s band I like the least, Red Hot Chili Peppers, with their new LP, Return Of The Dream Canteen! No need to belabor the point again; as I’ve said before, I think when historians close the book on ’90s rock, it’ll be Pearl Jam that’s considered the Band Of The Decade. I mean, lots of people love the Chili Peppers, with their perfect blend of jangly, watered-down Sublime-ska and basic quirky bar-rock, but come on, Pearl Jam, you know? Everyone can stomach at least one Pearl Jam tune, don’t kid around with me. Anyway, that, so let’s move it along here and check in with the Peps, and whatever they’ve done this time. When last we left them it was April of this very year, when they released their previous album, Unlimited Love, which saw the return of Rick Rubin as their producer, but wait a minute, it wasn’t that great, and that’s not according to me, it’s what fans have told me: They didn’t like it. So I guess I was right when I uttered such sweetness as “[on and on] the tune drags, with Anthony making stupid rapper hand movements even though he doesn’t rap, and then there’s some psychedelic ’70s vibe that’s just annoying and then some Austin Powers 1960s-pop vibe that also just made me depressed.” So shout out to you Pep fans who agreed that it was an awful album: you like me, guys, don’t you, you really, really like me! Sorry, could you repeat the question? Well no, I think the dude from Primus is a million times better a bass player than Flea, but let’s proceed to the part where I force myself to listen to whatever these overrated little rascals have done to destroy rock ’n’ roll this time. Rick Rubin is on board for this one, rakin’ in the mad bank, just cold helpin’ make boring songs famous, but hold on folks, let’s see what the dilly is with the first single, “Tippa My Tongue,” whatcha think of them apples? Oh, look at this video, this is so cool, guys, it’s like random colorful Austin Powers psychedelic just, you know, weirdness, right, and then they start their little joke song, and it’s sort of a mixture of Eminem and parts from the only two songs people know from this super-hilarious joke band, and look at the guys in their funny music video for this idiotic song, all dressed up in 1970s disco clothes, trying to look like they should be in one of those awful Will Ferrell “comedies.” It’s working, folks, any minute I’m expecting to see John C. Reilly or Chris Kattan pop out of nowhere and make funny jokes, those freakin’ hams, ha ha.

• The 1975 is one of those bands that has no idea what the ’70s were really like, yet everyone thinks their ’80s music is ’70s music. Their new album, Being Funny In A Foreign Language, is out on Oct. 14 and features the single “I’m In Love With You,” a tune that’s catchy but unexciting, like if the Cure and Guster had a boring baby.

• Todd Rundgren used to be famous, but nowadays he begs for nickels from Zoomers who have been taught that music is supposed to be awful. The title track from his new LP, Space Force, steals the hook from Toad The Wet Sprocket’s “All I Want,” apparently to remind us that “All I Want” was an OK song 40 years ago.

• Finally, it’s annoying quirk-chill band Wild Pink’s ILYSM, the single from which, “Hold My Hand,” sounds like Bon Iver on animal tranquilizers. I do not like it, nope.

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).

Alexis Castrogiovanni, Someday My Thoughts Will Be Like a Range of Mountains (self-released)

Debut EP from this Canadian singer-songwriter/cellist, steeped in ’90s throwbackism in the vein of Tori Amos and tinted with Minski, more or less. Castrogiovanni loves her some angst, as the above influences would handily indicate, but lyrically she’s more concerned with her own inner journey than the usual suspects on which “angry girl music” of the ’90s (exes, bad boyfriends and the patriarchy) focused. This is no Alanis clone, in other words, more an Ani DiFranco thing, characterized by her rapid-fire ranty-singing in “Ex-Girl,” whose beat is driven by the artiste plucking a bass-like line on her cello. I expect most listeners would hit Eject right off if they’re not into Ani or Tori or even PJ Harvey, and that’d be too bad, because the title track fares a lot better, sort of a Bjork-on-meds trip, and the effects she put on her instrumental weapon of choice keep it from being entirely disposable. B-

Chez Kane, Powerzone (Frontiers Music)

Cheerio, Bob’s your uncle, I’ll take any excuse to go check out a gorgeous British hard-rock-singing girl who dresses in basically nothing to shoot her videos, and bonus, fam, she’s actually a sweet, rather shy person, or at least she plays one on YouTube. This is her first solo album, one that doesn’t involve her sisters, who play with her in a band called Kane’d, whose 2013 single “I See Ya” was a pretty neat cross between Alanis Morissette and Joan Jett, if you can imagine. That wasn’t bad, even if it was kind of derivative, but time’s passed. Now Chez is older and is on a mid-1980s Heart trip; opener “I Just Want You” is basically “What About Love” but without an orchestra. “The Things We Do When We’re In Love” rips off Bryan Adams’ “Summer of ’69,” and so on and so forth. It all sounds great, but it’s also literally all been done. B-

Playlist

• Watch out, kids, here comes Friday, Oct. 7, bearing albums aplenty, and with that, you can make a note that I have indeed used the word “aplenty” in this award-winning column, as of today! No, there will be lots of albums coming out on the 7th, I’m sure of it, since Halloween is over and it’s basically the holiday shopping season until we get to the snow-and-abject-misery quarter of our year, can’t we just get it out of the way now so we can start thinking about eating fried fish and chips on the beach? I’d love for it to be over already, wouldn’t you? But there’s nothing we can do other than to press on, do our best to avoid getting frostbite, and listen to all the great new rock ’n’ roll albums, like for instance Under The Midnight Sun by U.K.-based ’90s-hard-rock fellers The Cult, you know, the band where the guitarist and the singer beat each other up on stage when their drugs wear off and they remember how much they despise each other. One of those two guys definitely earned some hatred, and I’d nominate whichever of them decided to abandon the slithery, almost psychedelic awesomeness of their breakthrough 1985 album Love — you know, the one with “She Sells Sanctuary,” “Revolution” and all that groovy hippie stuff — and decided to turn the band into some sort of straightforward and boring Buckcherry tribute band on their 1987 Electric LP, with all those stupid bonehead tunes like “Love Removal Machine.” Ha ha, I’ll bet it was the singer’s idea, remember how he had that stupid possum-fur hat on the album cover and all the songs were extra dumb, and you were “RIP, rock ’n’ roll, again?” Man was that album a disappointment, but hey, a lot of water’s gone under the bridge with these guys, so hey, man, maybe there’s something to like about this new album, as in maybe they realized how awful they became 35 years ago and there’s something cool on this album. Just call me a dreamer, folks, I’m going to go listen to the latest “cut” (I hate when that moron bass player Needle Drop uses that word to describe a “song” or “tune” in his CD reviews on YouTube; I only used the term to remind you that I detest Needle Drop as much as the guys in the Cult detest each other) “Give Me Mercy,” and frankly I already have high hopes, because the sample loop of the video shows Ian Astbury dressed like Anton Lavey at a devil conference, and there’s a spooky tree. OK, to the song itself, because that’s why we’re even here in the first place. Huh, look at that, they’re dancing in devil robes, and the guitar sound is awesome, almost kind of emo, maybe they did figure out that they needed to sound like they did in 1985. But wait, singer Ian Astbury’s voice is boring and old-person-sounding. Eh, it’s just the shell of The Cult, but with a great guitar sound, a lot of you would probably like it.

• Holy cats, King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard has a new album coming, called Ice, Death, Planets, Lungs, Mushrooms And Lava – do I even have room for all that text? “Ice V,” one of the tunes, is an electro-tinged Flaming Lips thingie, it’s OK. Needle Drop had words to say about that “track”/”cut” but I didn’t listen to them.

• Ermagerd, look out, it’s super-heavy (from what I’ve heard) metal band Lamb of God, with their new one, Omens! The title track is metalcore, surprise, and it isn’t as fun or cool as Heriot, if that affects your buying decision.

• In closing we have idiotic ’90s band Bush with The Art Of Survival. Leadoff single “Mor Than Machines” is ’90s-hard-pop oatmeal but with bendy guitar bits reminiscent of Korn added for no reason whatsoever.

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).

Maraton, Unseen Color (Indie Recordings)

Well, here’s a nice attempt at prog rock by a bunch of Norwegians, whose first album, 2019’s Meta, set the band off in the direction of serious things like festival concerts and all that happy stuff, not that basically every European band doesn’t get to play at those things. On this one, their fifth in three years, believe it or not, the singer is growing into his own as a Seal-soundalike, at least in album opener “In Syzygy,” which is probably indicative of a desired future as some sort of New Age festival staple band, a la Shadowfax and such. Do I mind this stuff? No, to be honest; it’s not Yes or Return To Forever, it’s slightly like Asia, but with a gentler, less in-your-face melodic approach. “Blind Sight” is really ’80s-sounding; they’re probably big into Tangerine Dream, which works for me, given other tacks they could have taken. It’s OK. B+

Kristian Montgomery and the Winter Kill Band, Lower County Outlaw (self-released)

It’s really not hard for me to keep up with eclectic Vermont-based folk-rocker Montgomery, what with the friendship we hatched on social media, but that’s not why this six-song EP gets a high mark. I was drawn to his stuff from the first time I heard it, a couple of records back; it’s fedora-rock but with top-drawer melodic urgency and no filler. I’m sure the ever humble Montgomery would attribute that to the synergy he’s developed with drummer Andrew Koss, but he’s had it in him the whole while, I assure you, and these songs are yet another quantum leap. His trip is a hybrid that melds bluegrass-tinged folk-rock to, well, name an arena band and he’s probably tried it on for size. “Gypsy Girl,” for instance, starts out with an early Yes guitar line, down to the backward-masked reverb effect, and then goes all-out Allman Brothers like a boss. “Easy To Forget You When I’m Gone” has a Chris Whitley angle to it, if that’s your thing; “Annie Pay Your Band” is a swampy Cajun beef-fest whose lyrics are directed at a Massachusetts concert promoter. A+

Playlist

• Friday, Sept. 30, is the next big date for CD releases, and we may as well kick off the anti-festivities with Slipknot’s new album, The End So Far. There are many people who like this pseudo-metal band, but I am not among them. In fact, one of the least enjoyable interviews I ever did was when I talked to their DJ, Sid Wilson, back when he was trying to sell himself as a massively indie jungle/dubstep edgelord. He went by the name DJ Starscream back then and had a sort of MF Doom trip going on, with some stupid metal facemask thing and all that. Anyway he was really annoying when I spoke to him, like he expected me to know all the obscure underground dubstep guys he was referencing, and the whole interview got bogged down with him trying to “OK boomer” me with a barrage of nonsense. The interview was for a show he was doing in Miami if I recall correctly, and the article had to be full of nice words, so as much as I wanted to simply write a bunch of jokes about how contrived and stupid he is, I wrote some nice things I didn’t want to. Karma did win in the end though, folks — Wilson did send me a couple of vinyl singles that I immediately sold on eBay. But that’s all neither here nor there, Wilson is just one cog in the Slipknot “juggernaut,” so let’s leave behind my memories of wanting to bake him in a pie and see how much I can stand of sampler single “The Dying Song (Time To Sing).” Yup, there we go, it’s the same old Slipknot: half the song is death metal lunchmeat and the other half is old-school emo/nu-metal. A lot of people dig this stuff, which I find is the only interesting thing about it.

• Wait, here’s something I can deal with, the new album from Yeah Yeah Yeahs, titled Cool It Down. As you may or may not know, the New York-based post-punk-revival band features South Korean-born American singer Karen O, along with a guitarist and a drummer who looks like he’s 12 years old. Pretty bratty stuff from this band, historically, not as mentally ill as Hole or whatnot, but pretty jagged and always interesting, so hopefully the new single, “Spitting Off the Edge of the World,” which features Perfume Genius. Well, listen to that, it’s a departure from their norm, but a nice departure: slow, melodic, epic shoegaze, with Karen coming off as an asexual moonbat, which she plays rather well. I love stuff like this and hope you do too.

• I’d be a complete loser if I didn’t mention Doggerel, the new album from Pixies, a local band that helped bring about the fall of the Boston rock scene that was actually happening during the 1980s after The Cars got big. Anyone remember that? If it hadn’t been for bad bands like Pixies and all those guys, Boston would have been a pretty happening place, a legitimate mecca of music that would have attracted major-label guys and big producers, which would have resulted in about 30 Led Zeppelins taking over the world from our dumb New England area, but alas, when all the big shots came to Boston from L.A. and New York, they weren’t impressed by Del Fuegos or the Neighborhoods, but they did sign the Pixies. That brings us to now, and the new tune “There’s A Moon On,” a rockabilly-tinged garage song that is decidedly OK, nothing to hate and nothing to be impressed over.

• We’ll close with Nymph, the debut album from British rapper-DJ Shygirl, who cites Aphex Twin and Madonna as influences. That makes no sense, but the kickoff single, “Coochie,” is nice enough, with its bloopy, half-there, Billie Eilish-ish beat, Empire Of The Sun-inspired melody and Shygirl’s pretty soprano. My stars, the record company’s bots have gone nuts posting comments on the video. Whatever it takes, I suppose.

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).

Franklin Gothic, Into The Light (Very Jazzed & Pleasure Tapes)

Nothing I hate more than committing to writing up a new release and there’s literally nothing about them to be found through a basic Google search. After 10 minutes of backbreaking effort, all I really know about this one is that the principal — Jay DiBartolo of Portland, Oregon — has taken the name of a computer font as his stage name, and that he’s a really interesting songwriter. His stuff is out there but eminently accessible, in the eclectically hip manner of guys like Luke Temple and Winston Giles (I know, you’ve never heard of them, just trust me on this) but with a more mellow bent. DiBartolo stated that this 12-song EP’s mission was to mold something that was so genre-mixed as to be original, and I’d say he’s in the ballpark; opening tune “Beneath” is like a cross between Byrds and Zero 7, and that’s just for starters. Love this kind of stuff. A

Whitney, Spark (Secretly Canadian Tapes)

Fourth full-length from this Chicago band, although they’d describe it more as a debut of sorts, a departure from their first three. Vibe-wise that claim does pass the smell test; they were eminently more hip-hop/aughts-indie infused in their last LP Candid, which was often like a cross between Jamie Lidell, MGMT and Grizzly Bear. But their new thing is applying their samples and (spoiler alert) falsetto voices to things that speak more to an afterparty thing. That ties in with the environs in which these tunes were slapped together: (very) late-night recording sessions in a rented Portland, Oregon, bungalow, which appears to have dredged up a certain melancholy resident with all humans; what I’m saying is that there’s a bizarre but very tuneful trace element of Elton John’s Captain Fantastic to be heard if you pay close attention, a subdued, desperate, lonely-but-dealing-with it angle on tap here. The overall sound is a bit contrived, sure, but this is no Jr Jr wannabe, not at all. A+

Playlist

• As is tradition, Friday, Sept. 23, is the next date for CD releases, and guess what, gang, this week I get to riff on that TV show Stranger Things, because the first album on the docket is Maya Hawke’s second album, MOSS! Hawke is, of course, the daughter of actress Uma Thurman and actor Ethan Hawke, so we know that her path to stardom was a tough row to hoe, probably involving waiting tables at IHOP for six shifts straight, you people just don’t know what it’s like! On the show, she plays the chick who dresses up like Popeye the Sailor for whatever kinky reason. I’m trying to remember anything she did in the show other than annoy her coworker, she’s that great of an actress, but then again, to me, that show is just a big fat fricassee of random 1980s cultural tropes with an unfollowable storyline about — you know, I don’t honestly know what it’s about, even though I’ve seen the whole series twice already. Whatever, it’s about ecto-monsters from another dimension or some idiotic thing, and the biggest headline that it ever inspired was “Wow Look It’s That Kate Bush Song On A TV Show,” which just made me and all the other incorrigible grumps say, “Who cares.” Will the 80s craze ever fizzle out? and yes, it’s news to me that she did an album before this, but yes, she did, in 2020, an LP called Blush, a set of country and folk songs that received a 6.8 rating from our friends at Pitchfork. I haven’t the motivation to go listen to any of that, but as far as the MOSS album, there’s a single, “Sweet Tooth,” a half-there twee-quirk-pop trifle that’s pretty and catchy enough if not very tuneful or adventurous, but seriously, gang, you have to hand it to this hilariously privileged wombat-pop wannabe for hanging tough in the face of all her obstacles. Warms my heart.

• And moving on, let’s see, blah blah blah, etc., here’s a band called The Comet Is Coming, with an album titled Hyper-Dimensional Expansion Beam. I’ll assume since I’m completely unfamiliar that this is going to be a Flaming Lips trip or a Kaiser Chiefs clone, and either way I’ll hate every note their instruments and voices produce, let’s go see what this nonsense does to my sensitive stomach. Nope, they’re a nu-jazz band from London, England, and, just like every other techie-ish band, they have pseudonyms like “King Shabaka” and “Danalogue” because their real names — “Dan,” “Max” and something else — won’t get people to buy their albums, and — oh, let’s just get it over with; the teaser track is “Code” (see how techie they are, folks?), a stompy, big-beat thing with a lot of skronky saxophone. It’d make great background music for a YouTube of someone getting chased around by a moose in real life, Benny Hill-style, let’s keep moving.

• Makaya McCraven is a jazz drummer from France, and the big news here is that I almost never see actual jazz albums in my corporate “You need to talk about this” list. This dude’s new album, In These Times, includes a number called “Dream Another,” an unbelievably boring, mid-tempo song that makes me think of Ben Kweller but with no singing. The video uses an animation technique in which images are composed and laser etched on stone and played through a zoopraxiscope, not that anyone will know what that means other than that it looks kind of dumb.

• We’ll end the week with Oakland-based singer The Soft Moon and his sixth LP, Exister, whose tire-kicker single “Become The Lies” is like 1980s Duran Duran but with some Depeche Mode goth going on. It’s OK.

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).

Joseph Shipp, Free For A While (self-released)

This 40-year-old Tennessee-born singer-songwriter tried San Francisco life for a while, landed himself a wife, then came back to his home state, specifically to Nashville, where he put out a coffee-table book (A Community in Black & White) of old photographs in collaboration with The Bitter Southerner. His background is in fact rooted in photography; his family owned a photography business, so what prompted him to put out this debut album (shipping on Oct. 28) is lost on me but probably speaks to an adjunct product to the book. Unlike so many of these jack-of-all-trades projects, the music fits in quite well with his rootsy art; in fact, if I had to pick a RIYL comparison for kickoff song “Rest Assured,” it’d be a cross between Hank Williams Sr. and Woody Guthrie, a comparison that’s deserved. Lot of more modern Americana here, though, like the strummy, near-Guster-like “Where You Are,” and there are curveballs of course, like the Mazzy Star-like “Only The Moon.” Shipp’s voice is unusually high, which does add some quaint eeriness to these proceedings. A

The Callous Daoboys, Celebrity Therapist (Modern Static Records)

It’s been quite a while since I investigated a band that specializes in mathcore, a genre that, last I knew, was lorded over by Dillinger Escape Plan and all that stuff, armor-plated with old-school emo ’tude and a lot of riffs with bizarre time signatures. That’s descriptive of the genre’s high end, of course; there’s no hard and fast rule to mathcore other than being loud and somewhat unfollowable relative to song structure (and yes, that’s my guideline; I stopped trusting Wikipedia’s genre definitions years ago, not that that’s the smartest thing to do in every case). So these four guys are from Atlanta, and what a terribly clever name they’ve given themselves, I’ll readily admit. That’s in line with their musical approach too: extended bursts of Dillinger Escape Plan-ish syncopated cacophony, but plenty of skit moments as well, probably recorded during dinnertimes and whatnot; it all feels very punky and personal. Well done, for what it is. A

Playlist

• Friday, Sept. 16, will see, like every Friday, a bunch of new music CD releases, and I’ll tell you right now, gang, things are already starting to heat up for the holiday buying season! I didn’t get a lot of Christmas releases last year, so hopefully that situation won’t repeat itself as we start running out of months in the calendar of 2022, widely regarded as the worst year in history only because nothing’s been fixed, things just get worse and worse, don’t they? But I know that you know the only cure for all that existential dread, that’s right, it’s new rock ’n’ roll albums, and guess who’s leading us off? That’s right, famous Manhattan-based band Gogol Bordello, with their Eastern European tuneage and fiddles and accordions; it’s great music to run around to while guzzling cheap whiskey and randomly punching people in the face, you should try it sometime if you haven’t! Wait, don’t go to Amy’s movie reviews yet, there’s a point to all this, specifically that this bizarre accordion-filled Romani-punk band does have an album coming out on Friday, titled Solidaritine! As always, the band is fronted by Eugene Hütz, who was born in Ukraine, so I’m assuming there won’t be a lot of protest songs about the recent Russian invasion or he’d end up peeling potatoes in a factory, but you never know, so howzabout we get to the gettin’-on and give a listen to the new single, “Take Only What You Can Carry,” which is — wait a minute, like Steve Harvey says when he’s emceeing a beauty pageant, it is about the Russian invasion! It says here that the song “encapsulates [the] emotional message of uprooted people whose lives were destroyed by this f–d up war in Ukraine.” Love this video, look at Eugene and his peeps walking around and overacting, occasionally stopping to say hello to some of the refugees. The tune has sort of a Meatloaf-ish, off-Broadway feel to it; it’s fun and crazed, of course. Did I mention there’s fiddles and accordions?

• Oh come on, just when I thought it was going to be a fun column, here we go, look who it is, folks, it’s unlistenable twee-rockers Death Cab for Cutie, with Asphalt Meadows, their latest batch of Gilmore Girls-begging nonsense-pop! Death Cab were the poster children for the “do all indie-rock bands have to be white” backlash of a few years ago (you remember, right? No?), which I largely avoided owing to the fact that I’ve never considered these guys to be “rock” in the first place, more like a sleepy, boring, dishwasher-safe garage band that’d be right at home opening for a balloon-animal-making clown at kids’ birthday parties. Man, do I hate them, but here we go, let me finish this bottle of Jagermeister and see if I can handle their new song, “Here To Forever.” Wow, it’s kind of listenable after all, but in a stupid way. It’s a cross between New Order and Christopher Cross’s yacht-rock song “Sailing.” Why would anyone do this sort of music? Don’t ask me, I really have no idea.

• Well, bless their hearts, look folks, it’s 30-year-old British art-rock band Suede, with their first album since 2018, Autofiction. The single, “She Still Leads Me,” is a feisty little Blur-like number that totally rips off Flock Of Seagulls’ “Space Age Love Song.” Other than that it’s astonishingly original.

• OK, and finally, it’s neo-neo-metal whatevers The Mars Volta, with a self-titled album. The album opens with “Blacklight Shine,” which features some very authentic-sounding African tribal music. Still not going to keep most critics from making fun of the band, though, just saying.

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).

Darryl Harper, Chamber Made (Stricker Street Records)

Here we have something of a culturally relevant item, a highly successful attempt to expand the racial boundaries of concert music, specifically chamber jazz, an organic style that sounds like high-end soundtrack music made with the barest numbers of personnel. In this case it’s New England Conservatory-taught clarinetist/composer Harper working in various settings, most fascinatingly the Wistaria String Quartet in the three-part “Suite For Clarinet and String Quartet.” That’s 16 minutes of nimble, sublimely melodic tuneage that will alternately make you think of very old Disney films and the more innovative things you’ve heard in Daniel Day Lewis’s more gritty movies, as wide-ranging as that may sound. And yes, the compositions aren’t of a kind your typical listener would usually peg as coming from Black musicians, but that’s part of the point — despite all their genius, the world tended to deny even the greatest composers their due as “legitimate” concert music composers: Duke Ellington, Scott Joplin and James P. Johnson, to name three. In Harper’s case, his deep expertise with his instrument keeps every moment vibrant and attention-grabbing, even when his accompaniment is bare-bones. Complicated, tuneful and brilliant. A+

Blue Largo, Got To Believe (self-released)

Pretty nice little surprise here, a married-couple-led band from California that categorizes itself as “Americana soul.” As you may or may not know, I’m not big on “fedora bands,” the type of act that would fit in fine at some craft-beer eatery playing Van Morrison covers and things like that, and that’s what I’d expected to hear from this LP. Ten original songs here, along with a cover of Nina Simone’s Quentin Tarantino-begging torch-blues hit “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood,” which does go well with their core vibe: a rugged, rough and slightly muddy style, redolent of ’60s girl-groups and Amboy Dukes on a Byrds kick. Eric Lieberman and Alicia Aragon share the wheel here, the latter taking the mic for the Blues Brothers-meets-Temptations-ish album opener “A World Without Soul,” a fine vehicle for Aragon’s trill-heavy warbling. “Got To Believe” finds the pair cleverly blending their voices on a Frankie Valli-oriented joint. Nicely done all around. A

Playlist

• Friday, Sept. 9, is the next date for CD releases, and wouldn’t you know it, the first thing to appear in my list of “important new albums” is the new album from Julian Lennon, son of former Beatle John Lennon and Cynthia Lennon. The album’s title is Jude, which I assume is somehow derived from the ancient Beatles song “Hey Jude,” which I never really liked, but maybe there’s something more to this album than Julian doing his usual John Lennon karaoke and trying to ignore the fact that most millennial kids who heard his boring songs on the school bus radio back in the ’90s thought he was Hanson or maybe They Might Be Giants trying to sound like The Beatles, who knows. I mean, you remember his 1984 hit “Too Late for Goodbyes,” and how it sounded like a song made specifically for grandmothers who needed a song about riding a choo-choo train made out of candy to help the grandkids fall asleep at nap-time? I’m sure you hated it as much as I did, and that you were like “Why would the son of a Beatle ever record such a thing?” but, like me, you sort of forgave him because he never really liked Yoko, like everyone else on Earth, I mean, you did, right? Oh, whatever, Julian had a hard time of it as a kid, being that John dumped his mom for Yoko. In fact, “Hey Jude” was written by Paul McCartney to console Julian over John’s divorce from Julian’s mom; it was originally called “Hey Jules” but McCartney changed it because he thought that “Jude” was an easier name to sing. But I won’t turn this exercise into a documentary about bad music and artistic oligarchy, as I’m sure other award-winning music journalists have done that with regard to The Beatles, so with your permission I’ll move on to the entertainment portion of this column by toddling off to listen to “Save Me,” the latest song from this album, and it’s actually not bad, a dark, insistent piano line, haunted vocals. I dunno guys, maybe it’s time to give the kid a break, hah? No? OK then.

• The old-school music from bands who don’t need the money at all continues with Ozzy Osbourne hawking his 13th album, Patient Number 9! The title track features a team-up with the super-ancient Jeff Beck, who’s been on more Guitar Player magazine covers than probably anyone, mostly because throughout his career he always stubbornly refused to play anything that most people would call “listenable music,” although his “People Get Ready” team-up with Rod Stewart almost qualified, back when the Earth was still cooling from the Big Bang. As I expected, the situation where Ozzy hasn’t had a truly cool arena-metal song since his Bark At The Moon days hasn’t changed, i.e. the song is in the vein of Alice Cooper and kind of sucks, but Beck’s guitar is pretty neat of course.

• Santigold, an avant-electronic artist whose real name is Santi White, releases her fourth album, Spirituals, this Friday. She’s dabbled with a lot of techno sub-genres, but the new single “Disparate Youth” finds her in sublimated dubstep mode, the main groove a barely there rinseout-ish thingamajig while she sings druggy indie-pop lines over it. It’s not catchy, but who knows, people have liked a lot worse songs.

• OK, very good, we’ll wrap up this week’s nonsense with Idaho-based indie band Built to Spill and their new album When The Wind Forgets Your Name! This includes the new single “Gonna Lose,” a completely horrible little song that’s like if Pavement and Flaming Lips had a baby and it was christened by those King Gizzard guys. This has been done a million times and a lot better, but other than that it’s terrific.

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).