Author: Eric Saeger

Josie Cotton, Pussycat Babylon (Kitten Robot Records)

Well look at this, post-punk royalty in the house. Cotton made her big splash in 1982 with the single “Johnny Are You Queer,” a tune that had originally been done by the Go-Go’s, and Cotton’s version became part of the whole ’80s punk canon, later appearing as background vibe on the soundtracks to Jackass Number Two and Valley Girl. Since then her Kitten Robot record label has released stuff from such diverse bands as CrowJane and Dark Mark vs. Skeleton Joe. But enough LinkedIn-style fluff, the business at hand concerns this full-length, which is basically Son Of Johnny, if you’re just trying to mark this as read and move on to Amy’s movie reviews. Cutesy girl-pop with only the mildest of edge, all retrofitted with noteworthy samples and beat-age, this is stuff that’d work fine at your ’80s throwback pajama party. “Recipe For Disaster” is a darker shade of the aforementioned vibe, slightly goth in fact; “Hi, I Like You” is the punker, something that might come out of KT Tunstall’s suddenly becoming obsessed with Lake Of Dracula. A

Inglorious, Heroine (Frontier Records)

Hey man, I think I’ve been pretty cool about not overloading this space with hard rock releases from ’80s-hard-rock bands, considering that I used to be in one of those crews in the olden days. I know, hard rock is basically dead, but ― and we’ve been over this before, of course ― I consider myself duty-bound to check in with what’s “going on” with the bands that still cling to the genre, which ― and you should know this ― still sells plenty of records basically everywhere in the world except for America and the twin prison colonies of Australia and New Zealand. There are still old-school arena-metal bands in the U.K., like this five-man operation, who’ve tabled here a collection of cover songs, most of which were originally done by famous divas like Whitney Houston (“Queen Of The Night”), Christina Aguilera (“Fighter”) and Alanis Morissette (“Uninvited”). But this is a dude singing, and he sounds like David Coverdale from Whitesnake. Can you picture Whitesnake doing a hilariously annoying cover of Joan Jett’s “I Hate Myself for Loving You?” Good, then we’re done here. B-

PLAYLIST

• The next date for most album releases is this Friday, Sept. 10, meaning we are definitely done with summer, just kiss it goodbye. I hate everything about that, but I shall soldier on, as the air begins to have a slight nip, and my summer non-grumpiness slowly gives way to general impatience with basically everything. I usually write this section two weeks in advance, so for all I know we are back in lockdown or have been invaded by aliens, so anything you see here does in fact hinge on society functioning normally. OK, I can’t keep a straight face about that last bit, nothing’s been “normal” in this culture since 1946 or so, but let’s pretend, for the sake of getting this column finished and into my out box, and since there are Santas in the malls already, let’s start with a band called Sleigh Bells, from Brooklyn, New York! But wait, they are not a band of holiday elves who love working at building toys, they are a boy/girl noise-pop duo, which means that I should automatically like them, unless they suck. Their new album, Texis, is their fifth full-length and their first since 2016’s Jessica Rabbit. Singer Alexis Krauss used to be a schoolteacher, and her side thing is activism, specifically toward the aim of making people aware of ingredients that are used in personal care products. Would you want to know what ingredients are used in your wintergreen-plum hand soap, or are you more like me, not caring which smelly, weird and unnecessary chemical finally puts me in the hospital for good? All right, the first single, “Locust Laced,” sounds a lot like Birthday Massacre, and since no one but me has ever heard Birthday Massacre, I’ll explain: think of ’80s-pop band Missing Persons, unless you’re not old, in which case I can’t help you with a handy reference, because all your music is basically unlistenable dreck. No, I’m kidding, think of all the songs you hear on that TV show Stranger Things, except it’s a lot better and there’s a dude playing a Metallica guitar now and then. Something like that. Make sense? No? OK, then we can continue.

• This is embarrassing, I actually didn’t know 1960s-girl-group mega-queen Diana Ross was even still alive, but sure enough, there she is, with a new album, called Thank You! Hmph, thank you indeed, even the slightest thought of Diana Ross sets off an earwom in my brain, so now all I’ll be thinking about for the next week is the line from whatever stupid song, “My world is empty without you, babe,” with that stupid skronky saxophone, thanks for nothing. Whatever, the album’s title track is a shapeless, formless blob of Foxwoods glitz-pop, nothing too strenuous, but what do you expect from someone who’s 78 years old. If she had William Shatner sing a duet, I would buy it.

• Speaking of wicked old people, Dark Matters is the 18th studio album from British pub-punk band The Stranglers. Did I mention that they’re old? Because they used to be punky and yelly, but the jangly new single “And If You Should See Dave” sounds like the theme song to some 1960s B-movie about a guy who turns into a turkey every full moon. You know, something like that. I can’t relate to this tune at all.

• Yikes, we’re done with this week’s rundown, except for one last thing, another pub-rock band, except this one isn’t as old. Yes, it’s Australian dumb-bunnies Amyl and the Sniffers, with Comfort To Me, their new album! The single, “Guided By Angels,” is like Courtney Love but more punk, like a drunk X-Ray Spex, but with a lot of rhythm. Anyone with ears would love this song, I mean literally anyone.

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).

Kazemde George, I Insist (Greenleaf Music)

There’s something of a precedent for this album, at least in an inspirational sense. In 1960, jazz drummer Max Roach released We Insist! Freedom Now Suite, a set of five songs intended to be performed during the centennial celebration of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1963. Impossibly, more than 50 years since, the equal rights struggle is still mostly a political battle that’s far from resolved. This, then, is George’s own musical thoughts on the matter, submitted in the — as I’ve noted a million times now — now-hopeless hope that art will inspire humanity to finally stop being idiotic about obvious things. But putting the intent aside, this is a really nice Barcalounger-jazz record from the sax player, leading a group for the first time under the auspices of Dave Douglas’ Greenleaf Music label. Beautifully engineered, these mellow pieces form a crystal clear pond of dive-right-in ambiance. George is definitely a sax player to watch, as his terrific soloing attests, and vocalist Sami Stevens is a treasure, scatting and crooning her way around most elegantly and with an original, unstressed sound. I’d recommend this to anyone. A+

Foghat, 8 Days On The Road (Select-O-Hits Records)

The only original Foghat member in this band is drummer Roger Earl. Singer Dave Peverett died years ago, and so did their lead guitarist, Rod Price (Fritz Wetherbee would want me to mention that Price died in 2005 in Milford after a household mishap). Who cares about the bass player, so that leaves the 70something drummer, like I said, and a bunch of other arena-rock pros, all of whom put up a good enough live front. This record launches with one of my fave overlooked oldies, “Drivin’ Wheel,” then gets into the goods, resurrecting the version of “Road Fever” from the original Foghat Live LP that put them on the map; only thing that’s missing is the energy you could literally feel wafting out of the giant-ass crowd (this all has more of a club vibe). Obviously for Foghat completists, if there are any still alive, and if that’s you, you’ll be psyched to learn that they’re playing at The Big E in Springfield, Mass., on Sept. 19. B

PLAYLIST

• Jane, stop this crazy thing, it’s September, and on Friday the 3rd new albums will appear as spam choices in your friendly streaming service, that super-friendly app that has totally never happily handed over the list of all your personal music choices to marketing data companies so that they could estimate your age, relationship status and economic privilege level and know what ads to send you, because there is no way that you are just viewed as a mindless consumer-bot by the Sentinels of the Big Tech matrix. No, I’m not kidding, everything’s fine, did you know that when you use the free wi-fi at Target, they track you through the store and make notes about what products you look at so they can fine-tune their email spam, no, I’m joking, seriously, oh look, there’s a squirrel, um, I mean a new album, called Sometimes I Might Be Introvert, from U.K. experimental rapper/actress Lil Simz! Her career has had a lot of help from famous Hanna-Barbera cartoon and trip-hop band Gorillaz; she opened for them during the 2017 Humanz Tour, and they’ve guested on each other’s albums. The single, “Introvert,” starts with an orchestral part that’s bombastic and Wagnerian, then settles into a pedestrian, almost-trip-hop beat over which Simz lays down some fluttery grime-ish bad-assery. The tune takes itself way too seriously, but whatever, you might honestly love it, and that’s your right!

• gg bb xx is the fourth album from Los Angeles synthpop band LANY, and it is on the way, which is actually good news, because they’re nowhere near as horrible as so many Top 40 bands are today. In fact, the new single, “Up To Me,” is like a cross between Above & Beyond and Boyz II Men, really chill but vocally rich. At the rate these guys are going, this LP will probably reach No. 1, I’m serious.

• Ha ha, look folks, it’s Nevada-based sort-of-rock band Imagine Dragons, with a new album, called Mercury – Act 1! Yes, that’s right, they didn’t break up, that was only a rumor that surfaced when one of the guys said he wanted to spend more time with his family. I know, drat the luck, am I right? To me, Imagine Dragons are basically the Dane Cook of modern ringtone-rock, sort of like if Coldplay and Ed Sheeran had a baby that stuck to whipping out the Millennial Whoop in every one of their stupid songs and only cared about appealing to 11-year-olds who have smartphones, despite the Surgeon General’s warning about smartphones lowering preteen IQs by one point every week they’re used. No, I kid, so, moving on, the new single, “Wrecked,” is a chillout song, an amalgam of Bon Iver, Coldplay and Seal I guess.

• We’ll wrap up the week with Senjutsu, the latest album from arena-metal stalwarts Iron Maiden, who are from England! Fun fact, and I don’t know if this is some sort of publicity stunt or whatnot, but the band’s singer, Bruce Dickinson, apparently contracted Covid-19 even though he was vaccinated. As always, I hesitate to believe anything a rock star says, because usually it’s just a prank to get media attention, which I personally refuse to provide, oh wait, darn it, I just did. The tire-kicker single, “The Writing On The Wall,” is southern-rock-ish, like the Outlaws, except with Bruce Dickinson’s voice. The video is a cartoon about some motorcycle dudes and some guy dressed like the Grim Reaper and there’s a dragon-shaped nuclear bomb; none of it makes any sense, par for the course with this band, whose visuals were always dumb.

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).

Sophie Du Palais, Endurance Of Pain Is The Power Of Being (Abstrakce Records)

There’s always room at this desk for techno, especially if it’s coming from someone who’s involved in a rising European niche. In this case it’s a German woman who’s part of the “contemporary Dutch electronic underground,” who also goes by the name Vrouwe Fataal, which means “femme fatale” if I’m getting this right. She’s billed as a Miss Kittin type, which makes sense upon first listen to “Glazed Disco Ball”; she sounds as drugged-up as Kittin did on any of her old stuff, although the epithets Du Palais babbles are of course in Dutch, and there’s more solidity to this blooping beat. But that’s skipping over a tune, specifically the album’s first tune, which is more on a Mario Brothers tip, cheesy but OK overall. It isn’t until “Boys Tears” that we hear her really get sleazy and industrial, though not to the extent you may have heard from Die Form, who are completely crazy (in a very good way). A

Briars of North America, Supermoon (Brassland)

This world/hipster trio, comprised of two long-lost cousins and one of their friends, was formed when the cousins, who never saw each other aside from two family gatherings for funerals, were forced to hang out together at the behest of one of their dads, simply because they both lived in Brooklyn. Odd as it looks, I think my “world/hipster” lumping makes sense; there’s Bon Iver-style moonbat ambience going on, but it’s pleasingly different, because one of the guys is a student of traditional and ancient forms of singing from places such as the Caucasus, the Mediterranean and the rural U.S., so the lyrics are often unintelligible but captivating. Their biography stressed my ADD to the max, but my takeaway was that they’ve done some world traveling to provide a sort of New Age service, soaking TED talks and other gatherings in their peaceful, well-heeled tuneage. Some really nice Americana on “Chirping Birds,” and witch-haunted chanting on “Ambient Condor.” Very creative stuff. A

PLAYLIST

• Tomorrow (or whenever, depending on which day you picked up this newspaper) is the 27th, a Friday, when the latest albums come out in a disorganized spill, all of them praying that some smarty pants snark-volcano like me won’t notice them trying to sneak into the record stores without getting a thorough, richly deserved paddle on the bottom for being horrible. We’ll kick off this week’s nightmare journey with New Jersey-bred Auto-Tune bling princess and RuPaul’s Drag Race judge Halsey’s If I Can’t Have Love I Want Power, her fourth. She is of course a product of Instagram, YouTube and all that gunk, and if you’re unfortunate enough to have a preteen living in your house, chances are you’ve been subjected to such dross as “Without Me,” her first sexytime-pop hit, or maybe her mindless “Closer” collaboration with monstrously overrated boyband Chainsmokers. Either way, you have my sincere condolences, and hey, chin up, maybe this stuff will be palatable, even though she left my beloved Astralwerks record label to go to Capitol Records, meaning she’s nowadays just another tool of Lucifer. The first single I ran into was “Can’t Have Love,” a typical hip-hop-tinged madrigal that —‌ wait, no, that’s a G-Eazy song that came out in June, never mind. So the title track is —‌ wait, it’s apparently a music-film double-whammy, and there are only snippets. If there’s anything that brings out the monster in me, it’s when there’s nothing but snippets. But wait, it’s not empty-brained pop, she’s taken this ridiculousness to a whole new level, a dramatic, epic movie thingamajig that’s like a cross between Game Of Thrones and the even more awful Outlander, like Halsey’s a very pregnant queen of someplace or other, and the film bit is headed up by Trent Reznor. Some people will find this all really great, and I will simply deal with that in my own way, like always.

• Turnstile is a pretty cool arena-punk band from Baltimore, and no, they’re not some sort of annoying Dashboard Confessional emo trip. “Alien Love Call,” the single from their forthcoming new album Glo On, finds them indulging in less punk and more arena-rock. Gone are the vocal tracks that sounded like they were recorded in someone’s bathroom; there’s almost a Jane’s Addiction thing going on in this mildly fascinating slow-tempo tune. I don’t like the guitar sound, but again, it’s OK overall. And it’s not emo at all, which is all I ask in life.

• There’s also a fourth album from Scottish synthpop band Chvrches, Screen Violence. I’m absolutely sure I liked what I heard from them before, whatever it was, but either way, the words “Scottish synthpop” should make any ears over the age of 40 prick up a little, let’s admit it. Whoa, these guys are playing to win this time, because guess who’s the feat in the new single “How Not To Drown?” Yes, you’ll die: It’s Cure singer and verified crazy person Robert Smith! This is all goth-y and epic, with a big chorus bit, and in the video Robert looks like he hasn’t combed his hair in two months. You’ll love it. I sure do.

• Finally, we have indie-folk/folktronica due Big Red Machine, with How Long Do You Think It’s Gonna Last. Guests include Taylor Swift, Fleet Foxes and Anaïs Mitchell, whose turn on the sleepy, rather draggy single “Latter Days” is Norah Jones-ish. Nothing folktronica on this tune, but who knows, you might totally love it.

Retro Playlist

Today we’ll go back exactly 13 years ago, to 2008, apparently the year my little column first came into being. I’m not wildly proud of those early days, par for my course. But it was a beginning, and there were plenty of targets. Metallica, a band that was, at the time, busily engaged in making people forget they were pretty cool, was releasing Death Magnetic, and it was necessary for me to find out how much I could insult the single “The Day That Never Comes” (it “sounds like that dumb Bob Seger wedding-reception tune they barfed out a few years ago”) without incurring the wrath of our editors. But I’m still here, and you can plainly see how much worse I’ve gotten since then. Salud.

Anway, there were two focus albums in play, like always. One of them, Tito Puente and His Orchestra’sLive at the 1977 Monterey Jazz Festival, was, of course, essential listening for jazz nerds who think jazz festivals are a fun time (I can’t imagine anything more boring than a jazz festival, except for maybe a librarians-only mud-wrestling match). And I said so: “It’s amazing, finding the King of Latin Music going nuclear at the Super Bowl of jazz, his hands and sticks moving up through the gears of his timbales in the run-up to an animated rendition of ‘Para Los Rumberos’ (Punte’s universally familiar salsa tune, the one that invokes Vegas-bound jetliners the way bread bespeaks butter).”

The other one wasn’t nearly as good, a two-CD mix from then-constant Pacha Ibiza house-DJ fixture Behrouz, titled Nervous Nitelife: Pure Behrouz NYC. The first CD “[starts] off with King Street Crew’s old-school ‘Things U Do 2 Me,’ a tiresome warmup that’s only missing a voiceover describing a Florida timeshare and sleepy videotape of golfing.” The big spazz-drop is OK, Roberto Rodriguez’ “Camera Obscura,” with “its finger-snap rhythm slowly turning feral under a funky but agile soft-shoe stutter-step layer.” Really the only reason I wrote about that rather trite record was because I had ignored Oscar G’s amazing Nervous Nitelife: Miami past the point of its still being “hot and new,” an error I still regret to this day.

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).

Anika, Change (Sacred Bones Records)
Collection of self-indulgent, googly-eyed runway-model-pop confections from a pan-European girl who apparently believes there’s a huge audience for the random superficial thinkies of a privileged former political journalist who — get this, you’ll never believe it — thinks the world is a little messed up at the moment. Behold what the Warhol/Bowie aesthetic has led us to in the ringtone era: a retro take on the overhead-speaker ambiance heard at overpriced clothing stores at the mall, which, I suppose, really did need a break from the usual soft-pedaled, blippy house-techno; I mean, if you want someone to pay $250 for a blouse that cost 30 cents to produce, your average customer would probably be more hypnotized if one of the songs from this absolutely unnecessary album were playing in the background. Take “Finger Pies,” for instance, in which Random Mononym croons her flatline-brained Nico imitation over a Velvet Underground loop that’s trying so hard to sound ’60s-artpop-authentic you almost feel obligated to dance to it for a second so it’ll shut up. Right, just what we need in a time of insane debt, plague and climate catastrophe: vacuous, tuneless retro garbage delivered by a fashion-victimized chick in gold lamé thigh-high boots. Utterly detestable. F

Cinema Cinema, CCXMDII (Nefarious Industries)
I know for a fact I’ve covered these guys before, but my crack team of unpaid pizza-gobbling interns can’t seem to find it, and I keep getting too distracted by internet nonsense to ever find it myself, so we’ll start from scratch with this sixth album from the experimental art-punk act, comprised of two cousin bros (one on guitar/voice, the other on drums) from Brooklyn. I know I liked what I heard from them before; these guys are hard-edgy and, of course, weird, as we hear on opening track “A Life Of Its Own,” an 18-minute thingie that’s totally Throbbing Lobster-esque, like Swans but with a New-Age slant — there’s a flute (or sample thereof) throughout, you see, not played very well but nevertheless redolent of a tranquil (if claustrophobia-triggering) forest. Elsewhere we have things like “Cloud 2,” a discombobulated noise jaunt that might make you think of an all-analog Battles; and “Crack Of Dawn,” which is pure crackpot-improv. It’s all very “meh” really. C+

PLAYLIST

• Friday the 20th is barreling down on us, tumbling head over heels, clutching fresh new rock ’n’ roll albums in its hands while it tries not to smash into a telephone pole and laughs at us for being bummed about the summer ending in like 20 seconds. Yep, before you know it, there’ll be plenty of things to hate: spiced pumpkin decorations at Hobby Lobby, co-workers lying about how much they love autumn, and everyone’s favorite: 4-foot Santas at Target, standing in piles of fake snow even while most people are still in their flip-flops and Rick & Morty T-shirts. There is nothing I can do about any of that, other than hold your hand and gently remind you that you’d promised yourself for the last 10 years that you’d move to Tallahassee, so it’s all your fault, but, along the way, cheer up and eat your watermelon-flavored Airheads while I tell you about the awesome new albums you can buy or pirate or whatever! I know you could use a laugh right now, what with lockdown talk making the rounds even as you prepare to make that dreaded trip to your closet to dig out your North Face jacket and snowshoes, so let’s discuss hipster-black-metal idiots Deafheaven and their new album, Infinite Granite! Wow, the new single “Great Mass Of Color” is a mixture of cut-rate Killers and government-issue shoegaze — hahahaha, I knew they’d drop the black-metal pretense sooner or later! The YouTube comments on this song are priceless: “Deafheaven but make it whirr but make it Morrissey”; “When your friend goes to college for a year and comes back home with a Flock Of Seagulls haircut and a tattoo of the infinity symbol,” stuff like that. So the results are in, folks: Ho ho ho, merrrry pumpkin spice, the people hate you, Deafheaven! They really, really hate you!

• What other unspeakable tortures lie in wait for me today — oh no, this is too funny, it’s Gestureland, another new album from former X-Files actor David Duchovny! My sides are splitting, guys, I’m telling you. What, did people actually buy his last few albums? Ahem, shall we investigate the new single, “Layin’ on the Tracks”? Hey, I don’t want to either, but duty calls. Ack, ack, the music is trite, absolutely dreadful, kind of like Neil Young but without the stupid screechy guitars. His voice is what you’d expect from him and his adenoids. Even if you’ve never played guitar before, I could teach you to play this song in 10 minutes and you’d break into a boss-level guitar solo out of sheer boredom. Why is this man doing this to himself, seriously?

• I don’t even wanna look, gang, what could possibly be next? No way, it’s semi-retired child star Debbie Gibson, with a new slab o’ vinyl, The Body Remembers! Ha ha, remember when she got into a slap-fight with other-former-child-star Tiffany in the Sy-Fy classic cinematic treasure Mega Python vs. Gatoroid? The only possible direction from there, of course, was down, so she’s been doing Hallmark movies, like 2018’s Wedding Of Dreams, which was about, oh, who cares, just bask in all the rich and delicious schadenfreude while I inflict the new single “One Step Closer” on my poor head-bone. Whoa, wait, she’s pretty hot in this video, and the song is sort of afterparty-techno, like Miss Kitty meets Janet Jackson. It’s OK!

• We’ll end this week’s musical water-boarding with Love Will Be Reborn, from Canada-pop lady Martha Wainwright! The title track isn’t bad, sort of Christine McVie/Fleetwood Mac-ish, if I’m being honest, not that I’m feeling so inclined.

Retro Playlist

Way back we go, once again to 2007, a year whose biggest events included Microsoft releasing Windows Vista and Office 2007. I’ll bet half of you readers are still using Office 2007, given that it didn’t require a subscription you had to buy and download from “the cloud” (I’m really, really sick of hearing about “the cloud,” aren’t you?). But let’s not wander too far; there were a few albums up for dissection that week, exactly 14 years ago, in these pages. The most notable one, an album I actually kept in my car’s cubby for a long time, was Bluefinger, from Black Francis of the Pixies, a band I dubbed “the ultimate anti-Fleetwood Mac, a jumbled train wreck of notes, pretty/unpretty voices and bar-band guitars that sucked in every unwary soul who got too close.” The best part of this rather good LP, I said, is “when he gives himself a do-over of the boys-choir chorus that Surfer Rosa’s ‘Where Is My Mind’ mismanaged, this on the new album’s ‘Angels Come to Comfort,’ whose out-of-nowhere fadeout is one of the most stirring things you’ll hear all year.” It really is a terrific song.

Elsewhere, there was Benelux-based DJ Sander Kleinenberg, with a two-CD set called This is Sander Kleinenberg. Ah, the good old days, when the house-techno record labels all had me on their lists, and I was up to my ears in sexy-cool beach music intended for velvet-rope clubs where all the fashion-model/scientist kids would drink until they danced and grope each other like lobsters in a supermarket tank. This wasn’t my favorite house album of all time: “By and large,” I said in an Exorcist voice, “fans are into his earlier releases for their funk, of which there’s plenty at the outset of the ‘Left’ half of this collection, but the tracks are all over the joint, sometimes getting bogged down in arrhythmic ambient bloviations that stay a little past their welcome.” I gave it a C+, which is my way of hinting that I probably Frisbeed the album out my car window at some point.

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).

Lex Leosis, Terracotta [EP] (self-released)

This female alternative hip-hopper is a long-board enthusiast from California by way of Canada, and her passive-aggressive flows have made her a real up and comer. Two of the songs (the Billie Eilish-ish “Won’t Wait” and the flighty-bassline-powered “Wanted”) were produced by Rainer Blanchaer (Drake, The Weeknd), who became a constant in her life during lockdown. If he’s into her, that should be plenty excuse for you to give this a shot. A

Wavves, Hideaway (Fat Possum Records)

Nathan Williams runs this San Diego indie band, a trio you’ve almost assuredly heard about before. The narrative he’d like us critics to front is that although he’s still the same kid who had an ecstacy-and-Valium-fueled meltdown at a 2009 Barcelona rock festival and had a remarkable streak of hooky beach-garage noise-pop broken by a too-glossy major-label attempt, he’s now old enough to have finally figured out that, oh gosh, just like anyone else ever born, he’s his own worst enemy. Did you enjoy that little Pitchfork-ish segue? I didn’t, so let’s see if the band sounds noise-grunge awesome, like in the old days, or kind of commercial emo, like in the more recent past. Gack, what the heck is this, “Sinking Feeling” is kind of twee, isn’t it? “Thru Hell” sounds like Hives after their moms forced them to get haircuts; “Honeycomb” sounds like commercial jungle meant to entice hipsters to eat Corn Flakes. Ack, ack, all set with this. C

PLAYLIST

• Even though it is a Friday the 13th, Aug. 13 is the next general-record-release Friday. I’m totally sure that bodes well for what awaits me when I check my list of things to review, and I won’t be disappointed. In fact, it is the only Friday the 13th of 2021, so I’ll probably get a double-whammy dose of awful, but, subject change, did you know that historians and folklore often have drunken brawls over whether the superstitious fear of Friday the 13th is actually based on the date of the Last Supper or the arrest of the Knights Templar in 1307? For me, I will attribute it to the release date of the new Willie Nile album The Day The Earth Stood Still, because I have to talk about it right now and I have no idea who he is. I don’t feel too bad about it, because the 73-year-old alt-folk singer-songwriter actually is pretty obscure, as well as being a philosophy major from Buffalo, New York. Please hold while I try to find an angle on this, if there even is one. OK, Wikipedia wants to Rickroll me into looking up some band called the Worry Dolls, but I won’t, let’s just say that his obscurity and six-year hiatus after getting sued or whatever in 1981 has made him into one of those “only cool, edgy musicians know about him,” being that Loudon Wainwright III, Roger McGuinn, and members of the Hooters and the Roches have helped him make albums. Stuff like that instantly brings out my cleverly hidden inner skeptic, but let’s have a go at “Blood On Your Hands,” which is guested by Steve Earle. It’s a boring old-school blues-rocker that someone like Jimmy Barnes would have thrown in the trash, meaning this Friday the 13th is probably just getting started being a Friday the 13th for me.

• Watch me perform critic magic with the following bon mot: Devendra Banhart & Noah Georgeson’s new album, Refuge, should just be considered a Devendra Banhart album, because Noah Georgeson is his constant producer. Of course, being that this is an ambient album comprised of slow techno loops and no vocals, I wouldn’t want it to be considered part of my legacy either, if I were Devendra Banhart, and I would definitely blame the really stupid video (big, gross snails crawling around on old Greek statues and generally being slimy and yucky) on Noah Georgeson. Thus, folks, the power of being a famous artist: If you have an urge to make a really pointless career move, always have someone else around to hold the bag.

• After releasing nine records, somewhere along the line this year, alternative-country singer-strummer Suzie Ungerleider got tired of calling herself Oh Susanna, mostly because one of her wine-mom friends finally got around to telling her that there’s a complicated racial history behind the song “Oh! Susanna.” So now she is Suzie Ungerleider, whether or not the critics will spell it right (some of them won’t, just to be jerks). In an act of quiet desperation, her new album is titled My Name Is Suzie Ungerleider, which will probably fix everything (it won’t). She’s originally from lovely, sparkly, rustic Northampton, Mass., but is now Canadian, but I will forgive her for that and listen to her new single, “Baby Blues.” I’ll try to be nice: The tune is sleepy, boring and hookless, and her voice is a cross between Dolly Parton and Lisa Loeb.

• Last but not least is British electronic musician Jungle, whose new album, Loving In Stereo, is coming out tomorrow. Despite his name, his style is electronic neo-soul, and the single “Talk About It” is actually really cool, like a Covid-mask-muffled amalgam of ’70s stuff like Bee Gees and Cornelius Brothers. You should check it out.

Retro Playlist

Exactly 14 years ago, this space was, if I recall, something of a catch-as-catch-can fricassee of random reviews. This was way before my stream-of-half-consciousness Playlist segment came into play, and come to think of it, some of this stuff may have ended up in one of the New Times newspapers or someplace else, but either way, let’s first revisit my magma-hot take on Humanity Hour 1, an album that had just streeted from legendary German hard-rockers Scorpions “(or is it just ‘Scorpions’ with no ‘the’, the original riddle of the Sphynx).” I was a bit fascinated with the fact that the band had fallen from the heavens by then; they were managed by Lieber & Krebs, who also handled Aerosmith and most of the other arena-rawk bands of the ’70s and ’80s, but suddenly here they were, “slumming it” on Universal Records. The results? Well, I noted, they were back. But “OK, not as super-far ‘back’ as [they were situated] when Michael Schenker had to cut elementary school classes so he could go into the studio and lay down the lead guitar heroics of ‘Speedy’s Coming,’ but … no, not as ‘back’ as the Animal Magnetism album either, you remember, with ‘The Zoo’ and all.” I’ll stop: basically they were back to doing tedious “No One Like You”-ish ballads, about 12 or so years after they’d become extinct. So I gave it a C+ grade (in principle it deserved lower, really).

That week I also riffed a bit on an album I rather liked, Victorious, from the Swedish band The Perishers. I loved basically everything I was sent from Nettwerk Records, and these guys were the types to spend “countless torturous nights writing their material, resulting in the sort of regal air that most indie bands try to fake through ‘experimental’ shock and awe.” Turned out to be their last album, much the pity. Sigh.

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).

Occurrence, I Have So Much Love To Give (Archie & Fox Records)

I usually don’t go for tunes that sound like Postal Service, with those cheesy 808-ish beats that are no more technologically fascinating than the first Donkey Kong video game. But in this case there’s a lot of layering at times, and it’s not always a Nintendo-fest either —‌ wait, let me start over, because the Figurine-ish title track that opens the album, with its Donkey Kong beat, a thing that to me always comes off as insincere anti-flamboyance, is the least appealing to me, and it does get a lot better. It’s the third album from an odd little crew of college grads with families and professional day-gigs that suck up 99.9 percent of their time, so the goal here isn’t to dump everything and open for Killers or whatnot. But that really wouldn’t be out of the question, being that they sound like a modern-day Blondie of sorts (singer Cat Hollyer is a dead ringer for Debbie Harry), and they do have a slight penchant for buzzy noise-rock (“The Preferred One,” which actually gets really pretty as it marches along). This one’s a grower, well worth your time. A —‌ Eric W. Saeger

Lauren Jenkins, Miles On Me Part 1 (self-released)

Texas-born and Carolina-raised, Jenkins has toured since she was 15, so I’m told. She’s still a small fry at the moment, having played a role in an Eric Roberts movie and clocked in on one or two other actress-things. There’s been a Today show appearance, and a lot of big magazines and newspapers, I’m told, have touted her as an artist to watch and such. The sound on this self-made album is top-drawer, like, I can tell by the drums, which sound big and splashy, totally radio quality. I know what you’re wondering, but I’ve tried to avoid that: Her music is basically Sheryl Crow-ish, and her voice sounds just like Sheryl Crow. There’s of course nothing wrong with that, on paper, but I’d venture to say that I’d prefer a Sheryl Crow soundalike to try something other than country-tinged Sheryl Crow radio-pop, savvy? I mean, the songs are fine, and other than Sheryl Crow’s music, I’ve never heard anything like this in my life. We cool? B-

PLAYLIST

• Oh noes, we’re into August already, somebody make it stop, or those precocious 13-year-olds who run the fish-and-chips takeout stand at York Beach are literally going to close up and go shopping for edgy backpacks for school! No, I say! I absolutely despise August, the month that’s just basically one giant Sunday, because you know that there’s not a lot of fun and laziness and whole-clam baskets remaining on the clock before dreariness and drudgery and snow set in and turn us all back into our true people-hating Gollum selves. But enough babbling, I must drop my growing desperation and get to business, because I am a buzzing chatbot in the entertainment matrix, and my assigned task is to tell you what albums to buy when they come out on Aug. 6. (The truth is that you shouldn’t buy any of them, really; if you really cared about yourself you’d only listen to old John Coltrane albums and four-hour classical streams through YouTube or whatever, but it’s your ears’ funeral). So let’s get busy, my corporate-enslaved darlings, let’s start with The Apple Drop, a new album from Brooklyn-based experimental-post-punk loons Liars! This trio is signed to Mute Records, which automatically spells awesomeness, of course, but in the case of the single “Sekwar,” your idea of awesomeness would need to be predicated on an ideal of Tom Waits leading 10 or so guys in a crazy but not unlistenable chant about cave gods or something. Some of you would actually like it a lot, is the scary thing, but that’s OK.

• Famous famous-person and unfunny comedienne Barbra Streisand is now a spritely 79 years old, so, like the giant grackle-monster Rodan, she must emerge from her cavern of Smaug gold and lay an album-egg, for the benefit of people who buy albums solely for the purpose of annoying themselves. This new album is called Release Me 2, but don’t get excited, ’90s-girl-group fans, I’ll bet that the “2” in the title refers to a sequel to some dumb album called Release Me. Yup, there it is, thanks Wikipedia, these are previously unreleased songs that would probably sound acoustically marvelous if the strains were bouncing off the walls of your great-uncle’s Marlboro-smelling wood-paneling. The first Release Me featured tracks recorded between her 1967 Simply Streisand and 2011 What Matters Most albums, but this one cast an even wider net (1962-2020), for instance a Babs version of Carole King’s “You Light Up My Life” that’s nasal-screamy and basically bad for you.

• Next we have country music human Chris Young’s Famous Friends, whose title track is based on an “ironic” trope, that his friends in Skunk County or wherever he’s from aren’t really famous, even though the song is ironically co-sung by famous person Kane Brown. It’s standard fare, like take any Toby Keith song, put it in the microwave for 20 minutes and serve. Nevertheless he played it at the ACM Awards, whatever that means.

• Our last thing to look at this week is Lingua Ignota, classically trained in the vein of Zola Jesus I assume, given that this thing here says she’s into industrial and noise rock. Sinner Get Ready is her newest upcoming album, and I’m sure I’ll love it, so off I go to the YouTubes to listen to the single “Pennsylvania Furnace.” Yikes, OK, look at this video, she’s in a sheer white angel dress, jump-cutting around in a field. Slow mournful craziness. Talk about gloomy, crazy and nutty, I shall pass on this, thanks.

Retro Playlist

I spun the dial on the Way-Back Machine as hard as I could, and look, it landed exactly 14 years ago this week, in 2007! I cared about a lot of different genres back then, including, well, every genre, even unbearable vintage wingnut-jazz. Like the newbie I was, while reviewing the Charles Mingus Sextet’s Cornell 1964 (a live album that had just been discovered at the time), I played it safe: “Jazz has unsubtle similarities to booze,” I babbled; “Miles Davis is brandy on ice in relation to the watered-down umbrella drinks of ’80s-era Ramsey Lewis and the egghead-banter martinis of Dave Brubeck.” Well no duh, I say to my 14-years-ago self. I was obviously trying to avoid the subject at hand, namely trying to review a too-hardcore post-bop record, but I did man up and hint to readers that this particular version of “Sophisticated Lady” was “disjointed.” In the end, though, hoping to keep Mingus fans happy (by the way, I don’t care about pleasing them or anyone else anymore), I added “[T]imid newcomers have sufficient opportunities to get acclimated, such as the readily accessible blues of ‘So Long Eric’ (referring to sax/flute/clarinet legend Eric Dolphy, who plays throughout this album).” If you’re still timid about records like this, my advice is to stay that way.

Also that crazily long-ago week, Euro-goth/industrial blockheads KMFDM had just released Tohuvabohu, which I found uninspired (“‘Super Power’ is the sort of jump-the-shark moment that makes longtime fans hustle for the exits”). As well, Aughts-indie bands were at their peak of being horrible (You Say Party We Say Die’s Lose All Time was Romeo Void for dummies), but I did actually like New Young Pony Club’s Fantastic Playroom, as their tunes were “party-girl singalongs over New Order guitars welded in place by matching synth lines,” so I said “most of this record is instantly likeable, putting between-craze Billboard pinups like Franz Ferdinand to shame” (like that’s a challenge).

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).