Author: Eric Saeger

Brothertiger, Paradise Lost (Satanic Panic Records)

Honestly, I haven’t come this close to burning a promo CD for personal use in I don’t know how long (shut up, that’s how us old-time music critics roll, because we refuse to pay one red cent for streaming services, given that we literally own enough beloved CDs to cover a football field). This Brooklyn-by-way-of-Ohio chillwave guy (John Jagos) really opens his soul with this one, and it’s a very warm welcome. Right off, the record is like waking up in a Maldives hut and diving right into the crystal-clear water to hang with the crew of sea turtles who’ve gathered to mooch your breakfast scraps. I love everything about it (I suppose I should disclaim right here that I feel right at home with albums like Moby’s Play, and some of that vibe — the mellowest side of it — is inherent in the sort of electronic pop this fellow favors), a set of sinfully sweet tunes over which Jagos’ pliable voice simply glides. If you’d like to hear Above & Beyond release a singles-oriented album, it’d be a lot like this. Awesome stuff. A+

Shira, Birds of a Feather [EP] (self-released)

My blackened soul can only tolerate so much American Idol-sounding stuff, even when the singer isn’t someone I take a visceral disliking to right off the bat, but I was impressed enough that this New Yorker had gotten some press love from the New York Times that I immediately decided she was Going To Be Important In Some Way. No, that’s a lie; I got roped into this when I noted that she called herself a “fairy-folk” artist, you know, like Tinkerbell, and sure, she is something like that, I suppose. Her voice is undeniably huge in this EP’s title tune, switching deftly between a Sarah McLachlan-esque sound to big-top Celtic Woman mode, where she demonstrates that she could definitely blow away an arena-load of over-perfumed grandmothers. She’s a work in progress, certainly; in “Usually” she switches over to ’90s radio-folk and tables what comes off like (top-notch) Jewel karaoke. But sure, fairy folk. I don’t hate the idea. B

Retro Playlist

Eric W. Saeger recommends a couple of albums worth a second look.

It’s true that the Covid-19 pandemic has spelled doom for a lot of businesses. It’s destroyed a lot of individuals and families as well, of course, people who’ve looked on as their savings melt away to nothing. For now, though — and you may have noticed signs of this on social media — others are pretty chill about it. Financially secure retirees with savings, pensions and Social Security income are doing OK. I know some of them. They’re taking it in stride, living relatively happy lives, minding their due diligence with regard to social distancing, wearing a mask and all that (I’m pretty sure I’m the only one in my circle who’s still militant about wearing disposable gloves, and have no plans to stop, especially after plague expert Laurie Garrett said she uses them religiously). One such guy is a local author whose Facebook output often consists of first-world-problem-type griping, but as well a lot of “life is good” observations. Not much choice, really; he’s got good scotch, which always helps.

Anyhow, a crew of us old writer grumps had a little Facebook discussion the other day about “yacht rock,” a genre that’s actually very relaxing, even if it’s mocked and detested by a ton of people. “Yacht rock” is stuff you’d hear, well, on yachts: Toto, Christopher Cross, Kenny Loggins, and, the guy I nominated as the absolute worst yacht-rocker of all, Michael McDonald. McDonald’s dreadful doggy-voice ruined the Doobie Brothers when he took over as lead singer, and he didn’t do Mr. Cross any favors either with his unintentionally hilarious turn on “Ride Like The Wind.”

I don’t mind yacht-rock; in fact, I caught a little flack during that online exchange for saying that I actually like Cross’s “Sailing” (from his self-titled 1979 debut LP). I’m a sucker for Toto’s “Africa,” too (from 1981’s Toto IV).

Michael McDonald’s voice is another thing altogether, though. Trust me, one note from that horrible voice of his when I’m on hold or trapped at a Hannaford supermarket, and I just want to run into the street, screaming like a loon. Hatred.

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. Email [email protected] for fastest response.

Playlist

A seriously abridged compendium of recent and future CD releases

• Stop this crazy calendar thing, summer’s totally over, I give up. The next general CD-release Friday date is Sept. 11, and there will be CDs released that day, so as not to make me look stupid. English art-rock band Everything Everything will personally assist me in this endeavor by releasing their first LP in three years, Re-Animator, just in time! Like everyone else in America, you probably haven’t heard of this awesome band, because they haven’t done a booty-shake collaboration with Nicki Minaj or whoever, which is all it really takes in order to make it big in America! But that’s OK, because I will tell you about them, by covering their new single, “In Birdsong,” a tune that starts out basically like a Nintendo-cheese nonsense song from Postal Service but then becomes an epic experiment in soundscaping, incorporating the soaring vocal dramatics of Elbow and swooshing, rootsy ’80s synth-prog. It is cool, so I will use reverse psychology on your brain: do not listen to this song. There, maybe that’ll work for once.

• Wayne Coyne, the leader of the Flaming Lips, is from Pittsburgh, which pretty much explains everything. The band is now based in Oklahoma, which also explains everything. No, I kid; the Flaming Lips, they are a great band, if you’re in your 60s and grew up wishing that someday you’d have a band to listen to that sounded like a cross between Captain Beefheart and a synthesizer being assaulted by a drunken groundhog. As usual, I don’t expect to be into whatever nonsense I’m about to hear from the band’s new album, American Head, but some of you love the Flaming Lips (right?) and so I shall endeavor to listen to the new song “Will You Return/When You Come Down” with an open mind, prepared to hold down my rather large lunch. Right, they’re singing in annoying falsetto, as always, and the melody is basically, as always, a variation on a Beatles song, “Don’t Let Me Down” in this case. You really like this stuff? Well, then, by all means, enjoy.

• Oh, why not, more falsetto, this time on “Prisoners,” the new single from The Universal Want, the latest from U.K. post-Britrock dudes Doves. Oh wait, the falsetto stopped, and now it sounds like Coldplay. The song seems to be about the existential angst of everyday working people who choose the wrong girlfriends, but whatever they’re babbling about, it’s a bummer. That’s just what we need in these times, sadboy-indie songs that sound like Coldplay.

• To end this week’s roundup on a hilarious note, Marilyn Manson is here, with a new album, called We Are Chaos! Nowadays, Marilyn is the only one left whose name comes from that super-adorable combination of famous-model/actress-and-last-name-of-serial-killer, because Twiggy Ramirez is long gone, and so is Ginger Fish (get it?). Oh whatever, “We Are Chaos” indeed, let’s see what the title track sounds like. Huh, this song is pretty dumb, just like everything else they’ve done since “Beautiful People.” Why is Marilyn wearing the same grillz on his teeth as Jared Leto when he (unfortunately for all humanity) played the Joker? Why would anyone do that? — Eric W. Saeger

Local bands seeking album or EP reviews can message me on Twitter (@esaeger) or Facebook (eric.saeger.9).

Young, Planetary, Locations I Can’t Place (Hidden Home Records)

Sometimes when I’m wading through all the new promos, I picture myself like a wizened Gandalf, looking for a bright shiny band of hobbits who surprise me just enough to warrant stopping for an extra puff from my super-long pipe. These Idaho boys look like any other slip-on-clad emo band, and they sound like it too, at first, the nerd-boy vocals, the angular guitars, all that stuff, but this EP is possessed of an abundance of heart; they don’t sound like they’re just trying to impress the girl next door who works at the Rite Aid; they’ve actually listened to old emo, the real stuff. I mean, it’s either that or they’re bummed that they didn’t have enough money to sound super-polished (and boring), but I really hope it’s the former, I really do. “Dig” is wicked punky, and one of the guys does a little screamo shtick that isn’t terrible. I wish upon these young emo hobbits a long, exciting adventure. A

Norah Rothman, enough (Hidden Home Records)

This up-and-comer techno-folkie has made a few entry-level splashes in a country-wide (but mostly Los Angeles-centered) circuit that would make most local artists think they’d arrived in force. She’s fishing for Joni Mitchell and Norah Jones comparisons, which I’d be happy to provide; her songs are dandelion-puffs of pretty, her voice a hooty combination of both aforementioned ladies, with a latently powerful hint of Shawn Colvin. She’s politically active, for all that’s worth; in 2018 she founded Earhart, a playlist/interview platform dedicated to “uplifting female, trans, and gender-nonconforming music artists,” and that’s all well and good, but what this boils down to is a sort of chill-mode Goldfrapp for yoga class, chocolate mousse for the working woman’s soul. “Wolves” gets its slow-finger-snapping steez from Otis Redding, and there’s a cover of, believe it or not, Madonna’s “Borderline,” stripped down to a stop-and-start elevator-torch duet with dulcet tenor Blush Wilson. The bareness of the package gets a bit tiresome; I would have liked to hear a bit more effects, but I could certainly nap to it. B

Retro Playlist
Eric W. Saeger recommends a couple albums worth a second look.

The original intent for this space was to leverage the “opportunity” Covid was handing us to look back on some older reviews I’d tabled in these pages and perhaps shine a light on them again. Fact is, even though it’s now been months since I began writing this, it wasn’t until today that I broke into the vault (in other words, my now retired hard drive) and took a look at some really old stuff.

The measure of decent art is gauging how it’s held up to the test of time. Trends come and (mostly) go, but these past years have mostly seen a blur of disposable junk. If you ask me, it seems like the entire decade of the Aughts was one big kaleidoscopic series of really unpalatable trends, as bands stretched out DIY capabilities, efforting not just to put out the odd record on a lark but also to even build their own imprints. So an endless tsunami of records has been coming at us at once, with no rhyme or reason, the eclecticism made even more unintelligible by the widening gap between working-class kids (who generally listen to music for the music) and college-educated, postmodernism-indoctrinated hipsters (who only seem to like music that really sucks melodically, which, on face, often seems to be the point).

Out there in the online sea, there’s an old L.A. Weekly column about the Top 20 worst indie bands. Arcade Fire was on there, perhaps unfairly, and a bunch of others. They caught hell for it, of course; the humorlessness that’s part and parcel of hipsterdom simply doesn’t allow for rational debate about basic melodic worth. Back in 2007, I knew something was rotten in Denmark, but I nevertheless decided to recommend Klaxons’ Myths Of The Near Future. Remember those days, the “nu-rave scene,” and how mediocre dance music was so important? Talk about shaky ground. I said back then that the genre “may be on to something, but there’s plenty of room in this newborn genre for more angst and artisanship.” Funny how that never happened, isn’t it?

One thumb-up I’ll stick with is Acid House Kings’ Music Sounds Better With You, from 2011. A mixture of decent-enough twee and 1960s girl-group, the best thing that record did was avoid having xylophone on it for the most (mfw wishing I’d made this column about hipsters playing xylophones during the worst musical era in history, not that I can’t later on, if I feel like it). It was interesting enough as a Columbia House throwback, but yeah, there was xylophone on one song, which, thankfully, I completely forget.

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. Email [email protected] for fastest response.

PLAYLIST
A seriously abridged compendium of recent and future CD releases

• On Sept. 4 all the new CDs will come to the stores and pirate sites, and one of them will be Chemtrails Over The Country Club, the latest from Lana Del Rey. Technically it will be out on Sept. 5, because she wants to get on my nerves, but whatever, let’s put her under the microscope and have a few laughs, which is overdue I suppose. You see, cool tech-infused chillout music from quirky hot chicks already peaked decades ago with Portishead, Goldfrapp, Kate Bush, PJ Harvey, various Massive Attack collaborators, and two billion others, so I have been a bit lax in keeping up with Lana Del Rey, who, because she is hot, has gotten away with portraying a breathless 1950s-torch cartoon character up until now! But wait a minute, welcome to the Snark Garage, missy, where I, the veteran mechanic, will pop open my toolbox full of tools that even I can’t identify and find out the dilly, for my awesome readers! I’ll admit I liked her first album, the self-titled one from 2010, and still have it around here somewhere, I don’t know, but apparently fame has made Del Rey a little crazy, because all sorts of critics and haters have been busy labeling her as anti-feminist. OK, let’s lift the hood and see if the new single, “Doin’ Time” isn’t stupid. Hm, it’s got a little bit of a hip-hop vibe but no hip-hop beat, like this’ll probably be on the radio a lot. She’s singing about someone treating her like crap, which I don’t get, like, isn’t that what a relationship is about? OK, everyone, wash your hands in the messy oil-stained sink and we’ll move on to the next nightmare.

• Who’s Bill Callahan? I don’t know or care, but he performed under the name Smog until 2007, and Domino Records has released his music, which automatically means it’s probably not completely unlistenable. In the early Aughts, one of the guys from Tortoise helped produce an album, which made him sound less sucky, and now he is 54 and supposedly still hawking his bread-and-butter sound, lo-fi, repetitive alt-country. The new album, Gold Record, includes a song called “Breakfast,” which is composed of two boring chords, and he sings like your dad’s creepy friend from the autobody shop, yay bad music.

• Post-punk oldsters Throwing Muses are from Rhode Island, and I always thought they kind of sucked, which only means you probably like them, just to make me mad. What they used to sound like was Versus trying to write bad B-side songs for The Go-Go’s, but who knows, maybe there is something on their new album, Sun Racket, that won’t make me think of empty Coke cans full of cigarette butts on the side of the highway, which is basically what their songwriting has always evoked. Well well, “Dark Blue” is pretty nasty and no-wave, loud and stupid, better than anything I’ve ever heard from them before.

• Let’s take it home with the new Hannah Georgas album, All That Emotion! She’s Canadian and has won Juno awards and “music prizes.” Yes, but has she ever beat up a cab driver? That’s my rock star test. I think the new song, “That Emotion,” sounds like Francesca Belmonte at first blush, but if I listen to any more of this disposable chill-pop I will fall asleep, so forget it. — Eric W. Saeger

Local bands seeking album or EP reviews can message me on Twitter (@esaeger) or Facebook (eric.saeger.9).

Rudresh Mahanthappa, Hero Trio (Whirlwind Recordings)

Jazz sax legend Charlie Parker is often referred to by his nickname “Bird,” which explains the title of this Princeton jazz director’s widely acclaimed 2015 album Bird Calls. If you’re familiar with Parker, you know he had the ability to dazzle with his bebop stylings, and so has Mahanthappa, who viewed this LP as an opportunity to pay rapt obeisance to Parker, his biggest and most obvious influence. But whatever, my goal here, as always, isn’t to lay out some eggheaded synonyms for the benefit of solemn aficionados whose record collections are 20-feet-wide end-to-end, but to rope in the odd stray who’s thinking of taking a dip in the depthless pool that is jazz. The long and short of this business here is that I can’t recommend this album highly enough if you’re wanting to be blown away by technical wizardry; most of its contents are extremely busy, effecting to cover the listener in bright musical glitter, but the touchstone knuckleball’s a beauty too, a rub of Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire” that plays with the modal subject like a dolphin with a beach ball. Nice one to have around. A-

The Milwaukees, The Calling (Mint 400 Records)

You can imagine how many times the great cosmic metaphorical Lucy van Pelt has pulled away the football just when I’m about to pronounce a straight-ahead rock record something special, leaving me tripping hilariously and landing on my duff, holding a half-written review that has to get sent to the recycle bin. It’s happened a lot. No, if your band wants to sound like Goo Goo Dolls with a side of Foo Fighters and get your local following of working stiffs to pay actual attention, this is what you want to sound like. As demonstrated here, decent guitar riffage is only one tool on hand, not the whole box; these guys prove that there’s still a place for non-indie hooks in our world, even if the most common place for hearing such stuff — sports bars — seems to be gone for good in the face of Covid. This is the sixth full-length from a crew of New Joisey die-hards who’ve worked their formula to the point that anyone would be convinced they were paper-trained by Bryan Adams. Some really catchy, heartfelt stuff here. A+

Retro Playlist
Eric W. Seager looks back at hip-hop.

Now that the Covid virus has left us all marooned on our own domestic desert islands, any elephant in the room is getting close examination. The elephant in the room regarding my 16-year-old column here is, of course, the fact that I don’t cover a lot of hip-hop. No reader has ever complained to me about it; I’ve posted the occasional Lil Wayne review and whatnot, but you and I both know I largely avoid the genre.

Fact is, I’m at the point where I find basically all corporate hip-hop quite tedious to write about. I was the first kid on my block to buy a Run-DMC cassette, I’ll have you know, and quite frankly, I decided that after Public Enemy’s 1990 masterpiece Fear of a Black Planet, there was nowhere to go but down for the entire genre.

I tell you, I’ve tried, and yeah, I’ll continue to. I paid some lip service to Swedish rapper Yung Lean’s recent LP Stranger, but now that we’re all friends here, lazily tossing peanuts at Dumbo, I can say that I think the guy just sucks. No, I was more hopeful about white-guy indie-rap in 2006, upon hearing Astronautalis’ The Mighty Ocean & Nine Dark Theaters (some truly immersive beats there), but to be honest, to me, if it isn’t Chuck D-level angry, I don’t have time for it. Same as I like DMX a hundred times more than Ludacris, I like Death Grips a hundred times more than Kendrick Lamar. Make sense?

One reason I mostly avoid corporate rap is because the reviews always end descending into reams of in-crowd nonsense about this or that tweet or Instagram beef. Gag me. As far as indie rap, I’m down, like I’d be big into giving some press love to a local artist who’s got some beats, if one even exists.

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. Email [email protected] for fastest response.

PLAYLIST
A seriously abridged compendium of recent and future CD releases

• One more round of new CDs for August comes at us on the 28th, and then it will be September, and I’m just going to shut up about what comes next, because surely nothing good will come of it, unless you are an abominable snowman or a ski buff, neither of which I’ve ever had an interesting conversation with. Self-taught musician Angel Olsen is from St. Louis, Missouri, and her deal is art-pop/indie folk. She received the most love for her 2016 album My Woman, because she successfully tried to get away from being pigeonholed as a lo-fi indie artist (pro tip for local musicians: Don’t play lo-fi indie if you want to avoid said pigeonhole). Pitchfork liked that one and, as usual, wrote way too many wordy words to indicate same (“congeal” was in there) but that’s Pitchfork for you, and the PopMatters review was poorly written, but that guy loved it too, all of which then presented a double-edged sword, because now all the hipsters were used to her not being a sad, privileged gloom-girl anymore, so all the critics hedged their bets on her next album, Phases, which covered songs from Bruce Springsteen and Roky Erickson, and gave it middling grades. That sort of brings us to now, and her new one, Whole New Mess, which comprises a bunch of songs from her 2018 album, All Mirrors, but supposedly these are more “intimate” versions, which tells me that if this stuff isn’t going to sound lo-fi and gloom-girl, I’m a monkey’s uncle in a striped suit. Yeah, yep, the title track is all gloomy, and I think one of her guitar strings is a little out of tune, which will bring joy to anyone who loves their music crappy. She’s a good singer, a little like k.d. lang, but gloomy and redundant. Come and get it, three-toed sloths.

• Toni Braxton is trapped in fame purgatory these days, now that she’s more of a reality show oddity than what she was originally, a cool bedroom-soul lady who was name-checked by a Spike Lee character in Do The Right Thing. Whatever nonsense is on her upcoming new album, Spell My Name, I’m sure it’s decent as long as she hasn’t switched over to doing Slim Whitman covers, but come on, isn’t there footage of her tripping over a Gucci bag and skinning her knee, or whatever happened on her reality show? Right, I’m supposed to take this seriously? Fine, I will, I’ll listen to her new single, “Dance,” and if I barf, it’s on you. Right, it isn’t bad, sort of like Sade but with more soul. Some gentle 1980s UFO bloops, a 1970s-radio orchestra section. Ha, now it’s getting all excitable toward the fadeout, and the overall effect is like a disco dance scene from The Love Boat. Let’s just forget this ever happened, fam, and move on to our next tale of terror.

• I know I’ve talked about Toots & the Maytals in the past, in this award-winning column, but I totally forget/don’t care what they do, so this’ll be like that movie where Drew Barrymore forgets where she is every day upon waking up. Wait, here we are, they’re a Jamaican ska/rocksteady band, maybe I was thinking of someone else. The band’s new album, Got to Be Tough, is coming, and the title track is pretty standard one-drop chill with a cool guitar part. The lyrics are about caring, which obviously nails the current zeitgeist.

• We’ll end this week’s parade of shame with another soul singer, Bettye LaVette, who, to her credit, doesn’t have a stupid reality show. Blackbirds is the new album, “I Hold No Grudge” the single. OK, now this is authentic and awesome, torchy soul, electric piano, and her voice is all croaky and old. Nice.

Local bands seeking album or EP reviews can message me on Twitter (@esaeger) or Facebook (eric.saeger.9).

The Killers, Imploding the Mirage (Island Records)

Um, wow, I never would have dreamed that we critics — at least the ones of us who just couldn’t quite place the wellspring from which Killers singer Brandon Flowers was drawing his hypnotic urgency — would have ever pegged him as some sort of new-jack Bruce Springsteen, but there it is, scrawled in big font all over album opener “My Own Soul’s Warning.” I mean, this time Flowers really wants us to feel our plebeian angst in this decent-enough rocker, which has as much in common with Kenny Loggins’ ’80s-shlock classic “Danger Zone” as it does with Bruuuuce, but let’s not talk about that (let’s really not). “Fire In Bone” is a departure, but in a good way, a thrumming head-bopper that reminds me of Robert Plant’s David Byrne-worshipping solo albums from the early ’80s; it assuredly is epic, awash in feel-good desperation. “Caution” is the room-flattener, outfitted with one of those bold, swashbuckling singalongs that put these guys on the map forever. As always, wow. A+

Psychedelic Furs, Made of Rain (Cooking Vinyl Records)

It’s been 29 years, 29 since the Psychedelic Furs released World Outside, dropped the unabashedly Depeche Mode-like single “Until She Comes” upon our heads, then realized that the 1990s weren’t going to be their decade and sank back beneath the waves, more or less. Since then, the band-founding Butler Brothers have toured, released solo albums, and, well, I could swear there was something else, but the world’s been pretty much Furs-less for all these years, unless you count the time their 1984 tune “The Ghost in You” was playing in the background on an episode of Stranger Things. We can see here that they still have a gift for pretty much useless dissonant filler (“The Boy That Invented Rock & Roll”) (and yes, there’s sax), in other words they haven’t grown up and found a way to appeal to Generation iPhone by trying out captivating new recipes the way Pet Shop Boys did, but most of their fans probably don’t want the Psychedelic Furs to be awesome in the first place. “Don’t Believe” has super-cool drums and a mildly depressing, awkwardly compelling hook to it, if you’re looking for the barest reason to invest your time in this. B-

Retro Playlist

Eric W. Saeger recommends a few albums worth a second look.

With the Covid pandemic looking about ready to plunge the entire country into general lockdown again, many bands are on their last legs, or at least down to their last shreds of sanity. Many musicians are having to collaborate through Zoom and other online platforms, which I’m sure is nice and all, but trust me, nothing beats the throbbing, eardrum-busting insanity of feedback from a bassplayer’s amp, or a nerve-jangling impromptu drum solo when the drummer is feeling bored and wants to take it out on everyone in the room. Such deafening horrors are pleasures one can only experience at a rehearsal space.

Any musician will tell you that the hardest thing to find to round out a band is a decent-enough singer. In the Covid era, many bands are stuck at the same place they were months ago, looking for that last elusive piece to their artistic puzzles, someone who can carry a tune and not annoy the hell out of everyone else by never helping out with moving (much less buying) any equipment, stuff like that. I was one of those guys back in the 1980s, auditioning for basically every band in Boston, getting tons of offers just because I could do a passable Robert Plant imitation and a letter-perfect David Lee Roth, complete with all the Screaming Lord Sutch shrieking. I felt bad for all the bands I had to say no to, but that’s the breaks. Many deserving bands never get off the ground owing to an inability to find a singer, which should explain all the bad singing one typically encounters during a SoundCloud binge, from the drunken-sounding awfulness of King Krule to the unapologetic suckage of Versus.

Mind you, some bands — nearly all of them heavy metal ones — just throw up their hands and say, “Fine, no one we know can sing, so hey, we’ll be an instrumental band!” I’ve talked about a few Pelican albums here, including their last one, 2019’s Nighttime Stories. Their songs all sound the same to me; a few decent metal guitar riffs here and there, but just, you know, lacking, because no singer. I’ll stop picking on them only when their PR rep smartens up and stops sending me their music.

There are good instrumental bands out there, though. Everyone seems to worship Tortoise, and, if I recall correctly, I was nice to their 2016 album The Catastrophist, only because it’s pretty nuanced for a post-rock record (there was an unnecessary cover of David Essex’s ’70s hit “Rock On” that I probably dissed).

Some of those bands are quite awesome in their way. I’d be cool with reviewing the next Animals As Leaders album if I get sent an advance, and if your thing is utterly demented math metal, you’d probably like Behold The Arctopus. But if you’re in a metal band and want to know the key to it all, take my advice: don’t do it. Easiest: hire a girl, like, any girl, your little sister, the mail delivery lady. You’re guaranteed plenty of good reviews from nerdy writers; critics become hypnotized like possums at a square dance if there’s a girl in your band, even if she sings horribly. Just don’t start an instrumental metal band. Don’t.

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. Email [email protected] for fastest response.

PLAYLIST

A seriously abridged compendium of recent and future CD releases

• Great, the next mass CD-release date is Aug. 21, meaning the summer’s just about over, and all I’ve accomplished as far as beachgoing was one quick visit to York Beach, and we went so late in the day — a Friday — that the parking lane was completely full all the way to the end of “Long Sands,” in other words we may as well have been on the Tijuana border. I give up, I want a do-over, how awful it’s been. But you know what could brighten my spirits is a few snippets from decent albums that will be released on the 21st. Maybe Sugaregg, the fast-approaching new album from Bully, will fill my beachless soul with happiness, and I’ll forget the fact that the only decent fish and chips I’ve had all summer came from the hilariously crowded Goldenrod in Manchvegas. I just give up, where’s the fast-forward button on this crazy thing. So, according to some idiotic blog, Bully’s new single “Where To Start” was inspired by Chumbawamba, but that’s idiotic, because it’s actually ’90s riot-grrrl, sort of like Hole but with good meds. It’s awesome, don’t believe any stupid rock writer other than me, go check it out this instant.

• Oh lovely, time for me to pretend to know/care about Old 97’s again, because their new album, Twelfth, is about to be released. You know, if I want to hear middle-of-the-road albums made of boring country-tinged mystery meat occasionally interrupted by almost-cool punkabilly, I usually — well, actually, I never do, I just listen to, well, basically anything else. But I will endeavor to see if my stomach can handle this new Old 97’s single over here, titled “Turn Off The TV.” Nope, it can’t, please pass the barf bag, this song is, as usual, a tuneless lump of bingo-parlor-indie, like, the overall sound is epic, but the music is like Goo Goo Dolls played by Martians wearing people-suits, trying to trick us into accepting this ridiculous nonsense as decent music. Rhett is dancing enthusiastically, and one of the guys is dressed like a clown, yet it still sucks. OK, let’s go on to the next one, come along everyone, is that someone’s Judas Priest backpack someone’s forgetting?

• Blub blub blub, I’m drowning in horror and lack of beach-time. Oh look, the new Fruit Bats album, Siamese Dream, is on the docket, for imminent release, just like my friend at Merge Records told me (we aren’t actually friends, they honestly don’t care about me, but whatever). This is a covers album, of the same-titled Smashing Pumpkins album from the Triassic Age, let’s see if it’s any good. Nope, the version of “Today” doesn’t make me want to cruise around in the official Smashing Pumpkins ice cream truck, it makes me want to take a nap and pretend these hipsters aren’t ruining the song. Don’t you hate that?

• Last thing for your consideration is, oh no, a new Bright Eyes album, called Down In The Weeds Where The World Once Was. The single “Mariana Trench” has decent singing from Conor Oberst, a good verse part, and then it gets sloppy and stupid for no reason, then becomes good again. OK! — Eric W. Saeger

Local bands seeking album or EP reviews can message me on Twitter (@esaeger) or Facebook (eric.saeger.9).

My Morning Jacket, The Waterfall II (ATO Records)

I tend to associate this Louisville band with their neighbors to their southern border, Tennessee’s Kings Of Leon, who’ve similarly carved a lucrative niche for themselves by tossing depleted-soil mystery-meat 1970s-rock into a blender, hipstering it up a little, and trying not to come off too rock-starry lest they’re abandoned en masse by the last few millennial-pandering blogs that might be interested in them. Where Kings are more like a rebooted, radio-centered Allman Brothers, MMJ are more blatantly Lynyrd Skynyrd-like, which won’t mean much to most of you, not that you should believe Last.FM’s assessment that they’re similar to Wilco and Spoon (good grief already). Whatevs, MMJ is at this point just a very good rock band, as we heard in 2015’s The Waterfall, from whose sessions these new songs sprang. “Tropics” had its Blue Oyster Cult side to it but was still uniquely epic, while here, album opener “Spinning My Wheels” flirts with early Yes throughout its breezy, windswept duration; it’s pure yacht-rock really. “Still Thinkin’” touches on Beach Boys, then we get some twee (“Climbing the Ladder”), some faux-Jamie Liddell soul interpolating a monster guitar interlude (“Magic Bullet”) and a bunch of similar things, the biggest departure being “Wasted,” the token Flaming Lips-ish jam-out. Harmless vacation listening, not that they should be doing that, but it’s their career. B

VOS, Rise EP (Cammo Music)

Not big on mawkish, wildly overacted gospel-pop myself, but hey, plenty of people love them some network talent-show bombast, and this is as good as any, I guess. VOS stands for “Voices Of Service,” a foursome (a woman and three guys) of African American singers who placed fifth in Season 14 of America’s Got Talent; all of them are military, two active, two not. You can easily picture Howie Mandel or whoever bowing and mugging it up with “I worship you as music gods” in the face of this angst-racking four-song effort, but that’s fine with me. After all, “Brother” has more in common with Ten Tenors/Celtic Woman than it does with any shlubby awards-show tribute to Aretha Franklin; it’s not horrifically overdone, and does have a lot of melody to it. “Choke” is the ballad, such as it is, unplugged guitar accompanying refried but boldly delivered breakup sentiments that spotlight each singer’s strengths. All the best of luck to these folks. A

Retro Playlist

Eric W. Saeger recommends a couple of albums worth a second look.

Last night, with literally nothing else on TV, I wound up watching the last two-thirds of Bohemian Rhapsody, the movie about the 1970s superstar rock band Queen. It’s a fairly forgettable biopic, not all that believable at times (trust me, no band has ever stopped in the middle of a high-drama fight to go “Say, that’s a cool bass line!” and suddenly start jamming out). That sort of thing aside, Rami Malek (playing Freddie Mercury) did a good job of convincing me that he was experiencing genuine distress over coming out as gay and upending his entire life.

Maybe I’m “too online,” but in my view, the LGBTQIA community hasn’t benefited all that much from the “Social Justice Warrior” (SJW) craze that’s swept over Twitter and such for the last decade or so. Instead of helping to spread real understanding and empathy between gays and repressed types who can’t get over their generalized fear of things that weren’t de rigueur in 1950s culture, it’s served as a popularity (and, let’s face it, money)-generating machine for B-list celebrities, self-obsessed nobodies and wannabe philosophers. The only online personality I trust (and have learned a lot from) is American trans woman Natalie Wynn, a philosophy major whose YouTube channel Contrapoints is must-see stuff. The short of it is that she’s actually had more support from conservative types (many of whom she’s taught to adjust their worldviews) than from certain rigid SJW gangs.

As a music critic and cis male, I tend to view gay-made and/or gay-centered music as simply another form of world music, a glimpse into a different culture. For the record, I don’t lump Queen as a “gay band” and never really thought much of them; aside from “Bohemian Rhapsody,” that tune’s rather uninteresting follow-up “Millionaire Waltz,” and a few sections of certain songs (they were/are annoyingly modular in their song structures), I don’t like them, really. I do like New York glam-disco band Scissor Sisters, whose album Night Work I talked about here in reverent tones way back in 2010. I was thrilled by it, a fun, jubilant set of really great songs.

I admire trans singer (for the band Against Me!) Laura Jane Grace’s courage, if not her music so much. In 2014 I may have been a little too enthusiastic with my praise for the band’s album Transgender Dysphoria Blues, which was pretty disposable. But she’s a hero to many, and I’d never detract from that.

Before I toddle off to read your hate mail, does anyone remember the local Nashua band Billie Dare, the punk band that used to play all the gay clubs in Boston? The girl singer used to wear a giant “diamond” on her ring finger? No? I loved those guys.

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. Email [email protected] for fastest response.

PLAYLIST

A seriously abridged compendium of recent and future CD releases

• The coronavirus marches on, and so I must fill this page with music news and snark, so that I can hopefully elicit a little half weep-giggle from you, as you sit sniffling back all the tears you’re shedding over having nothing left to watch on Netflix other than gross, badly overdubbed police dramas from Norway. Maybe you’ve even given up all hope and actually watched Tiger King, like, it’s gotten that bad. But for now, shut up, it’s time for your bowl of snark-berry cereal, this time focused on the music nonsense-albums that will hit the SoundClouds and your little brother’s totally hacked dark web laptop on Aug. 14, starting with Motherhood, the new album from Canadian shoegaze band No Joy.They hit the big time when they opened for Grant Hart of Husker Du, and he was like, “wow, two hot blonde chicks totally shredding it,” and that’s the whole story! I’m listening to “Birthmark,” the rollout track from this new album, and it’s got a lot of semi-interesting syncopation, and gentle sexless shoegaze singing. It’s kind of like a cross between Kylie Minogue and Goldfrapp but more interesting. The video has a UFO flying around in interstellar space, interspersed with some hipster doing a 1990s breakdance, but other than that, awesomeness does abound, and I approve.

• Yikes, it’s Scottish metrosexual-metal whatevers Biffy Clyro, with A Celebration Of Endings, their new album! I guess they’re sort of emo now, judging by the new single “End Of.” Wait, the guitars have been cool for a few seconds. Nope, forget it, it’s just boyband rawk wearing a scary Halloween mask. Seriously, do people buy albums like these, or do they take the advice of their older brothers and broaden their horizons away from this kind of recycled Weezer-meets-Papa Roach garbage? I need answers, fam.

• Dum de dum, oh look, someone I’ve never even heard of, Kathleen Edwards. Isn’t she the weather lady who replaced Al Kaprielian on local cable? I’m almost interested to find out. Nope, she’s a Canadian alternative-folkie who plays guitar, bass and violin. She once wrote a song called “Hockey Skates,” in case you didn’t believe she’s Canadian. Who cares, her new album, Total Freedom, is on the way right this minute, led by the single “Options Open,” whose opening chords were ripped off from the fadeout to Natalie Imbruglia’s “Torn,” a.k.a. the national anthem of Hannaford Supermarket. Yadda yadda, boring verse, two-note chorus that was probably written by a bot. We’ll do one more and bag it, guys.

• To close out, we have somehow-still-relevant Doors guitarist Robby Krieger, whose resume includes the lame solo to “L.A. Woman,” a song I detest with the power of a thousand suns. The Ritual Begins At Sundown is his new “platter,” and it includes a tune called “The Drift” that sounds like Pat Metheny, which means it’s awesome. I forgot he’s into jazz now, sue me. This isn’t bad. — Eric W. Saeger

Local bands seeking album or EP reviews can message me on Twitter (@esaeger) or Facebook (eric.saeger.9).

Fantastic Negrito, Have You Lost Your Mind Yet? (Cooking Vinyl)

In a sense, Xavier Amin Dphrepaulezz, a.k.a. Fantastic Negrito, reminds me of filmmaker Spike Lee, a Black man finding greatness in a white world. Like Lee, Negrito possesses an ultra-rare, universally accessible level of creativity that’s essential to getting his points across. We last left Negrito laying to waste every last Led Zeppelin wannabe with (to invoke Lee again) his musical answer to Do The Right Thing, 2018’s Please Don’t Be Dead, an LP that was a complete 180-degree turn from his Prince/roots-blues debut. Here, he nails the middle ground, strutting and owning his Blackness again, starting with the Stevie Wonder-on-rohypnol “Chocolate Samurai,” then (on the Tank-guested “I’m So Happy I Cry”) blasting a full 17-cannon broadside against Moby’s “Honey,” and no, I’m not imagining it. Even his Prince shtick returns, just because (“Searching for Captain Save a Hoe”). Just go buy this album, would you please? A+ — Eric W. Saeger

Bear Grillz, “Fire” (Dim Mak Records)

By its very nature, electronic dance music is a genre constantly in flux. By the same “progress-for-the-good-of-all” token, it’s rarely a violent uprising. But from the sound of this advance single from Bear Grillz’ upcoming EP, the entire genre may be under construction, or demolition, take your pick. The story here is that when Covid-19 shut down the world, Denver-based DJ/producer Grillz reached out on Twitter to any rapper willing to record a few syllables to be used on songs to come, and Salt Lake City native Atari answered (he sings and raps on two other tracks to be released later). I imagine most critics wouldn’t associate this with EDM at all, more like very aggressive dubstep; the main thrust is an Islamic call-to-prayer vocal over a menacing stun-guitar line, then build-up to chaotic drop, with a few lines laid down here and there. Maybe it’s official, then, that the lines of all electronic genres have blurred; I’m sure that’d be fine with fans who’ve grown quite tired of trying to keep up with designations-of-the-week.
A

Retro Playlist

Eric W. Saeger recommends a few songs worth another listen.

Millennials (adults aged 22 to 38) (um, 38 now?!) are about to inherit the world. The lovely starter kit God has chosen to bestow upon them includes such wonderful gifts as the coronavirus, a wild west internet filled with fake news and constant invasions from brigades of sockpuppet trolls, a failing climate, and “Past Shock,” a societal malady I coined in my book to describe the horrors that deeply tech-savvy younger people regularly experience when having to deal with outdated financial, political and other systems that are still rooted in backward, Industrial Age technology (or non-technology — why on earth should anyone have to show up in person at the Department of Motor Vehicles, ever?).

One of the culture wars raging nowadays is one in which “Zoomers” (a.k.a. “Generation Z,” i.e., the 21-and-unders) are blaming millennials for a lot of the world’s problems. It’s an unfair rap, really. Millennials have never gotten a break. Too many of them had to live with their parents because there were no jobs. Drowned in college debt, they abandoned all hope of ever owning homes. And why have children when the world’s literally on fire?

Even in the music world, they just can’t win. No fictional “Council of Millennial Tastemakers” ever voted for the “Millennial Whoop” to be identified as their core pop music sound. In fact, the “Millennial Whoop” — the same musical notes as in the children’s playground taunt “Nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah” — has been a go-to melody in pop forever. Wikipedia cites “Jungle Love” (1983) by Morris Day and the Time, and Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face,” but it’s been around a lot longer, in Cheap Trick’s “Surrender” (sneakily) and Queen’s “We Are The Champions” (blatantly) for starters.

Millennial-centric bands have done epic things with the Whoop, or at least its two dominant notes. It’s all over Kings of Leon’s “Use Somebody,” “Kings & Queens” by Thirty Seconds to Mars (I reviewed their 2009 LP This Is War here), and was even used by Green Day, whose “Oh Yeah” single lifts from Joan Jett’s “Do You Wanna Touch Me.”

Moral? We need to ease up on millennials already. They’ve done some cool things with their Whoop. Let them have that at least.

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. Email [email protected] for fastest response.

PLAYLIST

A seriously abridged compendium of recent and future CD releases

• Bands, singers and various random art-frauds will release new records this Friday, Aug. 7, including mummified arena-rockers Deep Purple, whose new album’s title, Whoosh!, has an exclamation point at the end of it, just like this sentence, which automatically makes you read it harder! Before you ask, no, guitarist Richie Blackmore is not in this band anymore, and hasn’t been since 1983. All the other original members are here, except for organ player Jon Lord, who is deceased. The video for the new album’s tire-kicker single, “Man Alive,” starts out with an orchestral background while some astronaut dude walks around in slow motion against a background of stars exploding or galaxies being formed or whatever; it reminded me a lot of how much I hated the movie Ad Astra, for being pretentious, boring and nonsensical, much like this song’s intro. But then the 1980s-Purple hard rock kicks in with a rumbling riff, and Ian Gillan starts singing about a Life After People scenario in which a guy washes up on a beach, and then there’s some esoteric spoken word nonsense, and that’s really it. Maybe it’s a concept album, but if so, is the guy in the video supposed to be a gill-breathing Waterworld dude, or just some lonely castaway “last man on Earth” who gets to draw a moustache on the Mona Lisa just because he can and he’s bored? I’m sort of intrigued, aren’t you? No?

• I’m going to assume yep, Wikipedia says I’m right — that California hardcore punk band Death by Stereo named themselves after the line Corey Haim spoke in The Lost Boys after killing the vampire with the Jennifer Connelly hair. That is actually a point in their favor as far as I’m concerned, so I will keep an open mind as I toddle off to listen to “California Addiction,” the single from their forthcoming new album We’re All Dying Just in Time, their first official full-length since 2012’s Black Sheep of the American Dream. Wait, they’re supposed to be “hardcore punk,” but this just sounds like old Slayer, like the guitar riff is fast and kind of complicated, and the singer sounds like Tom Araya. You will like it if you like misidentified hardcore punk or Slayer. Does that help?

• U.K.-based psychedelic art-pop fellas Glass Animals actually made quite the splash in the U.S. with their 2016 album, How to Be a Human Being, appearing on Jimmy Kimmel Live to play the song “Life Itself,” which had a pretty cool tribal beat, an LMFAO-style hook, and a really stupid video. The title track from their new album, Dreamland, is quite different from “Life Itself” in that the singer sounds like Bon Iver; it’s light and pleasant, with trip-hop elements and a hook that makes it non-sucky.

• To close out the week, we have country singer Luke Bryan, who wrote Billy Currington’s 2007 single “Good Directions,” among other things, before striking out on his own and becoming too big for his britches. His latest LP, Born Here Live Here Die Here, has as its single the title track, an instant cowboy-hat classic hoedown-ballad whose lyrics start with “Bunch of buddies in John Deere hats, a little crazy but they got my back.”

Anyone need further explanation? Good.

Local bands seeking album or EP reviews can message me on Twitter (@esaeger) or Facebook (eric.saeger.9).