Author: Eric Saeger

keep calm stay home, A Theme For… (Give/Take Records)

I know how much a good percentage of my readership loves The Beatles, even if I don’t so much. I only bring it up because the artist in question here, London-based composer Oli Morgan, is the mastering engineer at legendary Abbey Road Studios, the 90-year-old space where The Beatles cut, you know, the Abbey Road album. That’s some cred, for sure, but Morgan hasn’t been using it to record bubblegum songs; he’s all about ambient soundscapes, using techniques he used while working for big shots like Elton John and Seal. This one took him long enough, and it’s only five songs clocking in at a total of 17 minutes, but it’s a quantum leap from the ambient stuff that ends up on this desk. The title track, for instance, has an advanced art-rock feel, starting with a History Channel-inspired let’s-explore-this-giant-underground-cavern feel before suddenly shifting into an IDM/noise-rock joint. “Unrest” is more droney, almost gothic in the way it resembles stuff I’ve heard from Noise Unit. Well worth your time if you need to get lost in really thick layers of melodically usable techno. A

Die Oberherren, Die By My Hand (Svart Records)

This LP is described as “the product of Joakim Knutsson’s dissatisfaction of a genre which has gone totally down the drain,” meaning goth rock, which means he may have never heard Front Line assembly and all that stuff, but you know the drill: any angry goth-rebel palomino is a pal-o-mine-o. It streets this week, this debut LP from a six-piece Swedish band that wants to appeal to “metalheads, synth aficionados, rockers and shoegazers” but that also believes goth peaked in the 1980s. The record lifts off with “The Horned One Stabs,” a tune that does remind us that bands like Sisters Of Mercy are sorely missed, and that’s no understatement; in other words the tune is basically what you’d hear if you took everything about SOM’s “Lucretia My Reflection” and rearranged the parts. “By The End Of The Shore” adds some Fields Of The Nephilim gloom-pop to the SOM trappings and voila, very enjoyable if in no way groundbreaking. They have my blessings, certainly. A

Playlist

• So yo, the next general-release date for music CDs is Jan. 27, just a couple more months of winter horror left to go. Aaand terrific, I don’t know any of the artists dropping new product this Friday, so I get to — OK, wait, here’s one, Truth Decay from none other than You Me at Six, the British five-piece band that’s sort of half-emo and half-Creed insofar as temperament. You may have seen them on Warped Tour or whatnot, playing alongside Fall Out Boy and all those guys; chances are — if you usually do things like attend keggers and have a glass muffler on your car — that you’ve probably subjected yourself to their sort-of-hit single “Bite My Tongue” on many an occasion, but let’s just forget that, because a new and improved YMAS is here, to drop some fresh hot tracks! One hot track that got dropped for all you homeslices a few months ago was “Deep Cuts,” in which our intrepid heroes dabble with a Red Hot Chili Peppers sound at the beginning and then remember they’re trying to be Panic! At The Disco and so on and so forth. There’s another song for you to preview out there as well, “Mixed Emotions (I Didn’t Know How To Tell You What I Was Going Through),” which isn’t all that bad, a little like Hoobastank trying to emulate Aerosmith. It’s OK, but the video’s pretty dumb.

• Still on a British music tip, Sam Smith is a singer-songwriter who won fame in 2012 by featuring on Disclosure’s breakthrough single “Latch,” which peaked at No. 11 on the U.K. Singles Chart, according to Wikipedia — in other words you probably have no idea who we’re talking about here but that’s OK. Ha ha, this genius released a tune in 2014 called “Stay With Me” that was pretty good, but only because it sounded like Tom Petty’s 1989 hit “I Won’t Back Down,” but the party ended early, when Petty himself noticed the similarities between the hooky parts of the two songs (namely that they’re exactly the same except for the lyrics) and promptly sued the little rascal and settled out of court. But hey, come on, everyone accidentally steals from Tom Petty, you know that, so let’s cut Smith some slack and waddle off to YouTube to listen to “Unholy,” the latest single from their new album, Gloria. This track features German singer and popular trans figure Kim Petras (who received international media coverage that touted her as the “world’s youngest transsexual”). It’s a U.K.-garage-and-King Tut-tinged diva extravaganza that’s kind of fascinating, not that there seems to be any point to it whatsoever, but, well, there you are.

• Garage rock dude King Tuff is from our neighboring state of Vermont, where he makes garage rock records for the Sub Pop label. He looks like your average everyday popcorn seller at the local Comicon, all beard and unattractiveness, but that makes him more edgy than most, as who would want to be seen like that. He’s also the singer and guitarist of stoner-rockers Witch, and used to be in Ty Segall’s backing band The Muggers, if any of that means anything to you, but meanwhile the hot new beats he’s about to drop are compiled on a new album called Smalltown Stardust, the title track from which is sort of unplugged Nirvana meets Beck or something of that nature. The video is kind of neat, he’s hanging around this colorful Sesame Street kind of sidewalk playing a piano and fondling an actual rat. Yay randomness!

• And to end this week’s thing, let’s check out Electrophonic Chronic, the latest LP from U.S. garage rockers The Arcs. Led by Black Keys singer Dan Auerbach, the single “Keep On Dreamin’” is a cross between Flaming Lips and Wilco. It takes guts to be that lazily viable and relevant, you have to admit.

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).

We Are Scientists, Lobe (Masterswan Recordings)

You may remember this New York City-based indie-rock band first surfacing in 2005 with their debut LP With Love And Squalor, a sturdy record that did well for sounding like a cross between Killers and Tokyo Police Club (I know, there’s not a terribly wide difference there aside from the energy levels, which is what I really mean). I remember not being blown away by them, but they were fine, no problems. On this, their eighth full-length, they’ve thrown off the self-imposed adherence to Aughts-era “polite-noise” that made the whole decade so loathsome and have matured into something quite remarkable, a sort of neo-post-punk thing that — at least I’d think — will be genuinely adored by the 50-ish Gen Xers of their age group (I’m sure it’s refreshing not to act 10 years younger than they are). What do I mean? Well, opening tune “Operator Error” is a great one, like an evolved version of something Mr. Mister would have tossed up as a single. “Human Resources” is even more rich and delicious, evoking Tears For Fears 2.0, and such and so. This one deserves a lot more attention than it’ll get. Shame about that. A+

Dust Bowl Faeries, Carnival Dust (self-released)

These guys had me at “Hudson Valley, NY’s goth, rock, cabaret, vaudeville, and folk [band],” a combination of descriptors that the world needs much more of. As you’d expect, this quintet is visually appealing to cynical outcasts: guys dressed like beer-barrel polka-meisters; cute girls with plush antlers on their heads, but like someone (OK, everyone) once said, the proof is in the listening, and this six-song EP has all the necessary boxes checked, I assure you. Accordion-fueled oom-pa-pa in “Cuckoo”; Decemberists-tinged furry-pop in “Changeling”; a creepy campfire mumble-along (“Medicine Show”); vintage spooky-ghost-whistling in “The Old Ragdoll” — this bunch isn’t kidding around, especially in the video for “Lost in Time,” which rattles off every steampunk trope like it’s a test. Bandleader Ryder Cooder (apparently no relation to Ry) got Melora Creager of Rasputina to help produce this act’s first album and hasn’t looked back; if you’re a frequent attendee at spooky-cons, you’d better get on board fast. A+

Playlist

• You have got to be kidding me. The next general-CD-release date is already Jan. 20? How did that even happen? I mean, I don’t have a problem if this dumb winter wants to fly me right out the window and land me in a nice greasy beach Snack Shack staring down the barrel of a fried seafood platter, let’s do this. I’m already ready, since I hate everything about skiing and/or generally slipping on ice like a funny dancing clown on my way back into the house to gulp quarts of hot cocoa and try to find something decent on Netflix (there isn’t, and I should really just cancel my subscription right this minute, seeing as how I’m all set forever with gross serial killer mysteries with Finnish voice overdubs and people acting all nice and European and normal). Yessiree Bob, get me out of this insane frozen tundra post haste and serve me clams, fast-forward this crazy thing, but for now we shall suffer through these frozen winds, freshly blown onto our faces from Canadian igloos, and go check out some of these albums. I think we should start with British synthpop girls Ladytron, because the last I heard from them they were sort of a one-trick (albeit sexy, mind you) goth-tinged synthpop band that did little to differentiate themselves from mid-aughts euro-club acts like Miss Kittin and all that. With “Misery Remember Me,” the single to their new one, Time’s Arrow, though, I’m hearing a definite shift to traditional shoegaze — crank the reverb and the emotional unavailability, bake at 300 and serve. The beat is quite nice; now let’s see if I can find something I can actually mock.

• According to Wikipedia, Dave Rowntree is, let’s see, an English musician, politician, solicitor, composer and animator. Wait, did I take wrong turn at somewhere, oh OK, never mind, he’s the drummer from famous oi/pub band Blur, meaning Rowntree got his political campaign seed money by way of royalties from the ridiculously overrated Madchester, uh, classic, “Parklife” (think of a song that’d be in the buds of a gang of football hooligans who’re chasing Mr. Bean around a sleepy British burg and you’re there). But ours is not to tool on Blur’s oeuvre or find fault with British politics (if they have any). Nay, we’re tasked with looking at Rowntree’s debut solo album, Radio Songs, and trying to justify its ever being made. OK, listening to rope-in single “Devil’s Island,” I have nothing in the way of good news. There’s a kind of dumb synth line, ably made worse by an off-time clicking noise, and Rowntree talk-sings like the guy from Psychedelic Furs. It would probably be listenable if you were having a few “pints” at a pub in Lancashire On Whatever, but American audiences will listen to it and simply say, “Oh, a new Elvis Costello song I think,” and that’s why America rocks.

• Oh great, another album from Guided by Voices I have to deal with, it’ll never end, friends. This one’s called La La Land, and as always, it will consist of the last 20-odd songs that came to hilariously over-prolific songwriter Robert Pollard whilst he was in the water closet. You know the drill, it’s like King Gizzard, this guy puts out an album every three months, and the single from this one is “Queen of Spaces,” made of an acoustic guitar arpeggio that’s OK, then he sings and it sounds like he’s eating a Twinkie while he’s warbling like a half-sober Tom Waits. OK.

• Lastly we have July Talk, with their new LP, Remember Never Before. The rollout single is “After This,” an ’80s-tinted dance-chill number that will make you think of A-Ha, as if you didn’t already have enough difficulties to deal with.

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).

Heroes and Monsters, Heroes and Monsters (Frontiers Music srl)

You get why this is a stupidly named band, right, like, I don’t have to explain that there’s a really great band called Of Monsters And Men already, and Lana del Rey has a song called “Gods & Monsters,” right? (Am I being pedantic, I’m really trying to change, folks). But belay all that nonsense, because we’re talking about our friends at Frontiers Records, meaning it’s time for our periodic reminder to local Iron Maiden- and Judas Priest-soundalike bands that they’re one of the last companies that might give you an actual record contract if you’re nice, just tell them I sent you. Anyway, the rundown: Canadian supergroup-ish three-piece hard-rock band here (has there ever been a Canadian hard-rock that’s been able to find a fourth guy?): the singer was in Kiss guitarist Bruce Kulick’s band, the multi-instrumentalist was in Slash with Myles Kennedy and whatnot, and they sound quite a bit like Skid Row (you remember them, right? No, that was Cinderella. What? No, that was Tigertailz. Sorry? No, that was Poison. Etc.). The tuneage has some Savatage-ish power-metal to it, and the singer has a little Metallica to him. It is definitely OK. B

David Crosby, Live at the Capitol Theatre (BMG Records)

Yes, this founding member of both the Byrds and Crosby, Stills & Nash is still kicking around, sharing bong hits with random people and doing whatever else he does, if anything. Point of order, the Capitol Theatre in this case is in Port Chester, N.Y., not the movie theater in Arlington, Mass., but I’m not here to tease the 81-year-old alpha hippie. In fact, he’s still a decent enough songwriter, although there aren’t any songs from his last album, 2021’s For Free, in this live package. This one mostly consists of oldies recited by Crosby and the three 20-somethings (known as The Lighthouse Band) he has backing him up these days: “Deja Vu,” “Woodstock” and “Guinnevere” are here, all delivered with that old magic that involved those world-stopping silences in between phrases. He sounds pretty good vocally, and he’s still quite the acoustic guitar picker, but what may be most notable about this is that it’s his first live solo LP. A+

Playlist

• OK, super, we should have plenty of albums to talk about this week, because we’re clear of the holidays, meaning that all the bands and semi-talented “artistes” should be back to making a bunch of tunes so we can all gather around and hold hands and try to keep from laughing at all the awful music-clowns, who’ve been busy as little Santa elves, making albums for our merriment and snark. Now, try to be nice this time, guys, we wouldn’t want to — oh no, there’s barely anything in the current “you should review this” list on Metacritic, just two things coming out on Friday the 13th of January (yep, that’s how this year’s starting out, with a Friday the 13th right off the jump), and one of ’em’s a metal album! Terrific, I should have just stayed in bed until it’s warm out, you know, like, who needs this anyway? OK whatever, the metal album, here it is, it’s the new one from Obituary, called Dying Of Everything, is that edgy or what, folks? This band has been around since 1984, and they are from Tampa, Florida. The test-drive track on the band’s Bandcamp is “The Wrong Time,” and it’s like a cross between Leviathan-era Mastodon and Wasp. Funnily enough, that isn’t the worst combination ever, OK let’s move on.

• Margo Price is an American outlaw-country/Americana singer-songwriter and producer based in Nashville, Tennessee, and I know that for a fact because that’s what Google says, pretty much verbatim. The Fader thinks she’s going to be a huge star, whatever; and she was nominated for a Best New Artist Grammy in 2019. Her new album, Strays, is on the way, and hopefully you’ll like it, I guess. Right, so now let’s descend on this nice little innocent album like a pack of Dementors and find every fault with it and mention nothing nice about it, unless I change my mind after a few bars. OK, here’s a single, called “Been To The Mountain,” listen to that, she sounds a little like Cyndi Lauper or Gwen Stefani, I guess, and the tune is kind of Sheryl Crow-ish, straight-ahead bar-band rock. She does a little rap-skit thing in the middle that sounds like Transvision Vamp, if you remember them. Nothing much going on here, but it’s not all that bad.

• Hold it, I found more albums. That’s right, I tied a picnic knapsack full of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to the end of a hobo stick and departed my Metacritic bubble, and will you look at this, folks, it’s former HIM frontman Ville Valo, more commonly known as VV, with some new record called Neon Noir! We’re back in business, baby, let’s rock our ears and see if my lunch will stay down for a full song from this dude, whattaya say? Wow, the single, “Loveletting,” has a little bit of a She Wants Revenge flavor, but it’s also kind of hooky, like Eric Carmen used to be in the 1970s, and there’s definitely a goth edge to it. I have no problem with this tune at all, seriously. With regard to his 2023 tour, he’ll be appearing at Big Night Live in Boston, but not until April 2.

• Lastly, it’s Gaz Coombes, the frontman for Supergrass, with a new solo album called Turn the Car Around! Wow, this guy’s into the cabaret stuff, it looks like; he probably really digs Dresden Dolls and all that stuff, at least to go by the single “Don’t Say It’s Over.” There’s Austin Powers-style organ in there, and he favors disposable mid-Aughts hipster-pop vocals a la Dale Earnhardt Jr Jr. The song would be OK without the stupid organ, but on a scale of 1 to 10 in horribleness, it’s only around a 3, which improves on most of the music put out between 2002 and 2010, so bravo.

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).

Winery Dogs, III (Three Dog Music)

On Feb. 26, 2023, The Winery Dogs will be at Tupelo Music Hall in Derry, New Hampshire. They’re something of a rebirth of the hard rock superband Mr. Big, which older people will remember as an act whose main spotlight was on former Talas bass player Billy Sheehan. I remember seeing them in the late ’90s and thinking Sheehan was a little overhyped, but he’s good, whatever. Also on board is frontman Richie Kotzen, who, after graduating from Mr. Big, played guitar for Poison for a bit, and rounding things out is former Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy. Lot of borderline-interesting Guitar Player magazine-level wonkiness here, which usually spells bad songs delivered with panache. As far as that goes, album opener “Xanadu” (not a cover of the Rush song, point of order) is a lot of lightning-fast notes trying to find a purpose in life, but Kotzen’s David Coverdale impression makes it interesting. And so on and so forth, self-indulgent butt-kicking and etc. B

The Bombadils, Dear Friend (Epitaph Records)

Influenced by classical, jazz, bluegrass, Celtic music and various singer-songwriter traditions, this Canadian couple (Luke Fraser and Sarah Frank, FYI; their band name came by way of a Tolkien character) were nominated for a Canadian Folk Music Award for their sound, which, taken as a whole, tends to evoke John Prine/Emmylou Harris duets tendered with a Loreena McKennitt edge at its best moments (“Bicycle” for starters, which stumbles upon some really pleasant moments of contrapuntal vocals, a thing I’d really like to hear from more indie bands). “Tell Me I’m Not Dreaming” sounds simultaneously Fleetwood Mac-ish and like top-drawer Americana; the sturdy, vocally adventurous “Through and Through” gets even more Appalachian, so much so that you can practically smell the campfire cooking whatever’s going to be dinner. Fans of Bela Fleck and that sort of thing would be quite pleased with this, I’m sure, and I wouldn’t be surprised to hear these two on a soundtrack or three in future. A

Playlist

• Finally everything is sort of normal again, now that the holidays are over and there’s nothing left to do but ignore the voices in your head, as the winter starts getting worse and worse. It’s that time of year when you try not to end up turning into a snowbank-ghost like Jack Nicholson in The Shining, yessir, it’s all downhill from here, guys, my favorite is when some dude in a pickup truck tailgates you during a crazy snowstorm because he figures everyone has chains on their tires, just like him, same as they do in Siberia (or northern Maine, same thing). But keep it together, all you’re really supposed to be doing while we wait for the annual thaw and flooded streets is go buy some albums, and that’s what we’ll talk about in this section of the newspaper, the new albums scheduled for release on Jan. 6. First up this year is famous stage-diving violence-clown Iggy Pop, with a new LP called Every Loser. I hope you’re as excited as I am for this new set of tunes, and I’m sure you are, because let’s face it, Iggy is the last hope for cool in America. I recently saw a really nifty video of Iggy, with his pet parrot/cockatiel/whatever hanging around on his arm, and there was a sort of trip-hop/African tribal tune playing. So slowly but surely the parrot got more and more into it and started bobbing its head up and down, and then it got really into it and was totally hypnotized and danced, and Iggy was cracking up over it, anyway where were we, oh yes, there’s a new single from the Ig-Man, called — wait a minute, the Igster put the whole album up on YouTube, so we can just listen to the opening track, “Strung Out Johnny,” and bag this. Ha ha, this is so cool, like the guitar part is something Stiv Bators would have written, like borderline goth ’80s dance. I’ll make it short and sweet, just buy this album, OK, that’d be great.

• Anti-Flag is a roots-punk rock band from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which you whippersnappers would already know if the establishment hadn’t done away with punk years ago and replaced it with stuff like Green Day and whatnot. Lies They Tell Our Children is their new LP, and the rollout single is called “Laugh. Cry. Smile. Die.” And wait a minute, these guys put out their first album in 1996, so they’re just basically Green Day except from Pittsburgh! Whatever, they were kind of rough-ish and punk in 1996, and this new song is pretty fast and punk-ish. That means they’re basically like Panic! At The Disco, but whatever, Anti Flag everyone, don’t forget to wear a helmet or mom won’t let you try any funny business trying to skateboard through the half-pipe with your homies or whatever you people call “friends” nowadays.

• LOL, look, it’s RuPaul, with their new album, called Black Butta, and it’s on the way! Get over here, horrible new album, lemme give a listen to this new song, called “Star Baby,” before I change my mind and go drinking or whatnot. Hm, the tune is basically like the last million Britney Spears hip-hop-ish songs, except there’s some wub-wub. Is it catchy? I don’t know, you tell me, what am I, some sort of music expert or something? I don’t like it at all, if that gives you any idea.

• Finally, yikes, I may have spoken too soon, because there aren’t as many albums coming out as I’d thought. Like, there’s nothing left for me to write about except for some hip-hop person named Venus Da Kid, whoever they are, and their new album, um I mean mixtape, Dreams: The Mixtape Of Life. Actually, the tune “Apartheid” is kind of cool, like this dude sounds like a young DMX, and there does seem to be some substance to it. You might like it, and you actually should, but it sounds like he recorded it on a boombox (which makes it even better, 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).

Justin Courtney Pierre, Permanent Midnight (Epitaph Records)

If you’re going to sound like a male version of Mazzy Star — I mean the full Monty of that vibe, the aural equivalent of sipping a vodka drink while floating around in a luxury pool and feeling the tremors as the earth collapses — your lyrics might as well be so maudlin and psychologically adrift that people would worry about you a bit if they cared enough to try to grok your intentions (not that I detect any in the tune we’re discussing right now, “Used To Be Old School,” other than reflections on trite, Freudian little boyhood/adulthood reminiscences, but whom did that ever stop?). On and on Pierre warbles in his helium falsetto throughout the opening track of this listenable-enough five-songer, after which he tables a bunch of mid-Aughts noise-ish rock recalling Dandy Warhols and all that, exploring aging, fatherhood, family, longing and whatnot. Nothing wrong here, but by the same token there’s nothing that hasn’t been attempted by literally thousands of bands. A

Various Artists, This Ain’t Your Mama and Papa’s Holiday Music: A Compilation of Holiday Favorites for the Weirdo in Your Life (Island House Recordings)

You have about 20 seconds left to get this downloaded and prettily packaged so you’ll have a nice, edgy, indie collection of holiday tunes for your edgy indie holiday feast, which, if you’re like most people trying to get by during this corporate-greed jubilee that’s being blamed on “inflation,” will consist of buns, with actual hot dogs if you’re lucky. I got dragged into this set of 17 songs when someone clued me in to an upcoming EP from the New York City-based Royal Arctic Institute, a five-piece all-instrumental band that contributes to this compilation a sloshy, dreamy version of “Christmastime Is Here,” you know, the maudlin melody from the old Charlie Brown Christmas cartoon. It’s fine for what it is, but there are plenty of edgy indie things from which to choose here: a giggling, sample-soaked “Deck The Halls” from Synthetic Villains that didn’t upset my stomach, and so on. I’m already out of room for this shtick, but do keep in mind that all the proceeds from this one go to benefit the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, so you should buy it just to be nice. A

Playlist

• Icky and gross, it’s the least wonderful time of the year, because as far as I can tell, there are almost no new albums due out tomorrow, Dec. 30, a Friday, which is of course the traditional day of the week on which to release new albums. Let’s face it, the holidays are over, no more plastic Halloween skulls everywhere, the Thanksgiving-flavored turkeys are all eaten up, Christmas and all its good will toward people and whatever is but a memory, and all that’s left is New Year’s Eve, the night we married couples stay up late to watch a bunch of people who’re immune to frostbite make out in Times Square after an electronic ball drops, and then, if we have any brain function remaining, we stay up another 15 minutes to catch up with all the latest new corporate rock acts (“Wow, honey, I didn’t know Florida Georgia Line actually had a catchy song!”). Then, of course, we ceremoniously clink our Coke glasses together and try to herd the cats up to bed. See, that’s what happens when you grow up enough to realize that New Year’s Eve is a plot to sell you cheap liquor, and that nothing really magical ever happens on that holiday, that is unless you get engaged to someone you can actually deal with as the clock strikes Bedtime. Have you ever gotten engaged on New Year’s Eve and broken up with that person two months later? I have. Have you ever gone bar-hopping and been stuck driving in a car when the clock struck midnight? I’ve done that one too. They should make a movie about New Year’s Eve that exposes the potential horror of it, like someone being stuck in an Uber at the stroke of midnight and they get sent back in time to the day before Thanksgiving, and they have to relive the whole holiday season, and if they don’t get it right and have an incredible moment of New Year’s Eve wonderfulness in which they smooch with their Twitter crush or whatever, they have to go back and do it all again. No? What about if there are velociraptors to deal with too?

• OK, I have no bloody idea what I’m going to do to fill the remainder of this space. Want to hear about the worst-ever meal I cooked on New Year’s Eve, of course you do, one time I was dating a vegetarian and I spent the entire day of New Year’s Eve making this disgusting tempeh-meatball dish with sauerkraut. The recipe required all sorts of stupid ingredients, like ginger root and sesame oil, all sorts of things that would have been great by themselves but which together made for a dining experience so unpleasant that I should make a short horror story out of it, to horrify people. But oh look, I’m saved, because some U.S. band called Bandit is releasing an album of “grindcore” (actually overly polished emo) tuneage, titled Siege of Self, on — oops, it was Dec. 29, but close enough. It’s stupid, and everyone’s calling it a worthless pile of Pig Destroyer worship. In other words, the only people who might like it are grindcore dudes who’ve never heard Pig Destroyer before. (No, don’t bother.)

• On New Year’s Eve day, some American metal band called Bayonette will release a new single called “Grógaldr.” No one knows anything about it, not even the Album Of The Year site, which means either that it doesn’t exist or that the band doesn’t understand that record releases need to be announced so that people know they exist. I don’t care what the case is, let’d just wrap up this dumb year with one more thingie.

• Finally we have DaniFighter, apparently a Turkish artist who, like Bayonette, has absolutely no idea how to announce an album. This dude has been known to put out Gorillaz-influenced noise-hip-hop that really sucks, and his new album/EP, Lecsavarlak, will be out this Friday, Dec. 30. Have a great New Year, folks!

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).

Sarah Pagé, “Méduses” [single] (Forward Music)

You might remember this Montreal, Canada-based harp-experimentalist from her 2019 album Dose Curves, or, more likely of course, not, but as avant-music goes, this is something that might interest you, as she’s been working on a new record titled Voda, and this single is intended as a teaser for that. This bizarre piece features cellist Vera Ronkos, bassist Jonah Fortune, and Pagé on bowed harp, all working to create a sound triangulation that bespeaks weird undersea goings-on. “Méduses” is French for jellyfish, and they’ve nailed the vibe, I’d say; the seven-minute study shimmers and floats like an incidental bit that escaped from the soundtrack for The Abyss, if you remember that movie. The album will include a limited-edition set of art prints comprising “a visual for each movement of the album, along with album credits and interpretive texts.” I know I’ve written up a good chunk of oddball ambient music on this page over the years, but very few have been so, well, accurate as this. Gets a little gloomy here and there, but it’s pretty friendly drone overall. A

Nyte Skye, Vanishing (Sonic Ritual records)

This northern California-based shoegaze/’80s-technopop duo is a father-and-son band in the most endearing sense of the phrase: It consists of vocalist-guitarist-dad Nyles (who came to this project after a stint with psychedelic-shoegaze band Film School, which released a good handful of records in their day) and his son Skye, who was 12 when this album was recorded. Admit it, that’s kind of cute, and the kid does like to take glam shots while wearing knockoff Ray-Bans, but the punchline is that they do look like some kind of quintessential ’80s band. That fits, given that dad Nyles is an unabashed Cure fan, as most of these tunes would attest. And we’re talking early Cure, too, the stuff that was on Standing On A Beach. But the beats aren’t about the old-school 16-bit drums Robert Smith favored; somewhere along the line, young Skye found an old Slingerland marching drum from the 1930s, which makes for some pretty wide timekeeping sounds. Anyone who loves ’80s stuff, this is all you. A

Playlist

• So this is Christmas, and what have I done? Another year older, and there’s more snark to come. You know? Hey gang, I’m supposed to talk about albums coming out on Dec. 23, because it’s a Friday, but guess what, there aren’t any! Yes, this week’s pretty much a wash, I doubt there’ll be many albums to talk about, but do any of you older people remember Gail Savage, the seacoast New Hampshire singer who used to play Pat Benatar cover tunes in all the local bars during the 1980s? Well, the other day, I accidentally found out she lives forever on YouTube, like, she recorded an EP with her long-haired androgynous tattooed love boys in 1985, titled Swedish Eyes (can I get a nudge-wink?), and it really wasn’t all that bad at all. In fact, the four songs were actually kind of good! She played basically every weekend at local places like the Kahala restaurant in Nashua and the Meadowbrook in Portsmouth, and all that stuff, and she sounded exactly like Pat Benatar. Oh come on, boomers and Gen X-ers, don’t look at me like “Hurr durr, geez, Eric, I have no idea what you’re talking about, I had chores to do at my family’s chicken farm, and I sure wasn’t out and about at all those rock clubs, with all that sin, and girls who looked and sang exactly like Pat Benatar!” Riiight, if you so much as set foot in New Hampshire during the ’80s, you couldn’t help knowing about her! If you ever stayed up past your bedtime, you probably heard her singing someplace, like, she and her band were probably singing some awful Steve Winwood cover tune while you were trying to eat your chicken wings or eggs Benedict at Howard Johnson’s, or — what’s that, you’ve never heard of Howard Johnson’s? It had an orange roof. Not a typo. Anyway, Gail Savage, everyone, the former queen of New Hampshire’s rock ’n’ roll scene. I’d love to dish some info about her current whereabouts; some former guitarist of hers is on some music-gear chat site, and I asked him where she was, but he never wrote me back (yes, he dared to ignore me) and no one else seems to know. Boy, it’s too bad clubs are no fun anymore, like, I went to one in Manchvegas a while ago and everyone was just standing around playing with their phones, except once in a while someone would start getting all weird and loud and performative, like they owned the place. Well, I suppose some things never change then, am I right? Someone please kindly get in touch with me this instant if you know where she is, that’d be great.

• Oh, the horror, what do we even have to talk about in this column this week? Ack, Weezer put out an album titled SZNZ: Winter a few days ago, but I can’t really deal with millennial-centric nerd-rock right now, folks, I just can’t. Let’s not. Wait, here’s one, from Viper The Rapper, called You’ll Cowards Don’t Even Smoke Crack II, but guess what, it comes out on Christmas Day. Whatever, there’s the title track on YouTube, and it’s such a funny song, ha ha, listen to this guy, sounding like Biggie after guzzling an entire gallon of Robitussin. This may be the most awesome thing I’ve heard this year. Merry drugs, everyone!

• We’ll end this week’s torture with Sonic Speed’s Sweet And Subtle Toxins, which looks like another hip-hop album. Funny, it used to be that the only things I had to write about during the Friday closest to Christmas were metal albums, but nowadays it’s hip-hop. This one comes out on Christmas Eve, and their Bandcamp page is useless, but I found one older Sonic Speed tune on YouTube. It sounds homemade, and they admit the band is a joke band, but it’s awesome, Kool And The Gang meets Usher or something, probably produced for free using a Disney Princess beat from a Fisher Price toy gizmo.

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).