Category: Albums

Charlene Darling, La Porte (Disciples Records)

It’s been a while since the last time I was presented with an album from a quirk-pop Kate Bush wannabe, and here it is, and thankfully not drowning in desperado-romantic angst. But at least this Parisian-born, Brussels-based underground fixture sings off-key a lot, I’ll give it that! No, seriously, folks, if you like Air, Figurine and all that stuff, you’ll probably find a lot to like here, even if I can barely stand it. The key to making music like this is to spend a lot of time in your apartment playing at being existentially lost, as the video for “Tour s’efface” demonstrates; I saw something in the press release about a guy running tape loops for this lady’s group but didn’t hear anything notable in that regard, which is par for the course here. Despite all my disdain for this thing, Iggy Pop, of all people, liked it enough to play it on his BBC radio show. Urban sluggery and first world problems ahoy! C- —Eric W. Saeger

Iogi, We Can Be Friends (Raw Tapes Records)

It’s been a while since the last time I was presented with an album from a quirk-pop Kate Bush wannabe, and here it is, and thankfully not drowning in desperado-romantic angst. But at least this Parisian-born, Brussels-based underground fixture sings off-key a lot, I’ll give it that! No, seriously, folks, if you like Air, Figurine and all that stuff, you’ll probably find a lot to like here, even if I can barely stand it. The key to making music like this is to spend a lot of time in your apartment playing at being existentially lost, as the video for “Tour s’efface” demonstrates; I saw something in the press release about a guy running tape loops for this lady’s group but didn’t hear anything notable in that regard, which is par for the course here. Despite all my disdain for this thing, Iggy Pop, of all people, liked it enough to play it on his BBC radio show. Urban sluggery and first world problems ahoy! C- —Eric W. Saeger

Playlist

• Oct. 20 is our next new-CD-release Friday, and, much as I don’t want to, yes, I will be normal today and speak first about the only album that matters to Billboard magazine and the mainstream audience it hypnotizes, The Rolling Stones’ new one, Hackney Diamonds! OK, I mentioned it, may I be excused now? Right, I guess not. Let’s just say that I never cared about the Stones and never will; the only songs I used to like were “The Last Time” and one other, I forget, but it doesn’t matter, if I want to hear Stones songs all I have to do is go to Dollar Tree and wait around a few minutes, basking in the despair of that end-stage-capitalist vibe you can only get at a dollar store. Personally I’d much rather hang around at Discount Madness in Pelham because they play 1950s songs all day, and it’s fun to hear the retirees walking around casually whistling along to tunes about jalopies and sock hops, songs that really marked the end of rock ’n’ roll’s usefulness. I mean, after that, pop rock was just about hair and “trousers” and really nothing else; the Stones were basically Black Sabbath to Led Zeppelin’s more pliable Beatles, and both ’60s bands had super-boring drummers. That’s all I have on all this tediousness for the moment, so, as far as the new album, the single, “Angry,” has a video that features this generation’s Marilyn Monroe, Sydney Sweeney belly dancing to the song, which has some good AC/DC energy but is still mindlessly Stones-ish. I don’t hate it, no, now may I please go?
• The Streets is one of the stage names under which British alternative hip-hop/garage dude Mike Skinner releases records. His forthcoming new LP, The Darker The Shadow The Brighter The Light, features the single “We All Need An Enemy,” a Cockney-accent-drawled chill-trap number that’s actually quite listenable; in it, Skinner waxes apathetic about people finding love in hate groups and other necessary evils. I was impressed.
• Bombay Bicycle Club is an English indie-rock trio named after a now-defunct chain of Indian restaurants in North London! In 2009 they released their first album, I Had The Blues But I Shook Them Loose, a fairly thrashy affair that was all about post-punk, and the hilariously loquacious wonk at Pitchfork Media found stuff in it to complain about, and then they went low-key folk in 2010 with their Flaws LP, which was silly of them to do, then they tried stadium-indie on for size in 2014 with the album So Long See You Tomorrow, which was electronic pop, and that takes us to now, with their newest, My Big Day. I hate to take just one song to talk about when discussing the latest album from a band that’s never really even known what kind of band it’s supposed to be, especially given that it’s my understanding that this album is a genre-mishmash according to my fellow music-journalist hacks, but I’ll go out on a limb and give a listen to the title track, because I am a daredevil, don’t try this at home, folks!
  Right, so it’s a quirky whisper-electro joint powered by a fake electric piano sample that really accomplishes nothing, but that’s the charm of that kind of thing, isn’t it?
• We’ll wrap things up for the week with Blink-182, which is one of those emo-rock/power-pop bands whose success baffles most people over 45; at the moment their main selling point is that their drummer is Mrs. Kourtney Kardashian, which is sure to change after her next mimosa vacation in the Maldives, but that’s OK! One More Time is the band’s new full-length, the title track from which is a strummy nerd-pop ballad. It sounds like Lit trying to be Simon & Garfunkel, all set with this. —Eric W. Saeger

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).

Diamond Dogs, About the Hardest Nut to Crack (Wild Kingdom Records)

I don’t get too many rootsy honky-tonk-punk records in here, but point of order, they’re always welcome. Formed way back in 1991, this Swedish rock group attempts to revive the soul of borderline Stiv Bators/New York Dolls-style pre-punk, not the least melodic thing you’ve ever heard, but certainly awash in attitude. “Blight The Life” is all that and more in the form of purebred bluegrass punkabilly, and by that I mean of the purest original Hank Williams Sr. sort, the type of mayhemic cowpunch-rock that evokes an odd combination of barns and chickens and imminent danger from carelessly flung slam-dancers; similarly, “Wring It Out” is a hilariously anachronistic cross between the Stones and Black Crowes, which isn’t to imply that there’s anything wrong with it. If you need a legitimacy check, the band’s OG posturing earned them a brief moment of fame on MTV’s Headbanger’s Ball in 1993 when one of their tunes somehow snuck into the show. A

The Nervous Eaters, “Kelly’s Sixteen” (Wicked Cool Records)

I didn’t hate this band all that much back when I was even younger than you are today, when idiotic soul-sucking working-class assembly-line jobs were depressingly plentiful (you unemployed kids living in your moms’ basements really need to count your blessings) and WBCN was the Boston radio station to listen to if you wanted people to think you were cool. This local-to-Boston band was a one-hit local-radio wonder (unless I’m missing something) whose big single, “Loretta,” was produced by Ric Ocasek of The Cars in the early ’80s; the tune was, like most Boston rock was in that halcyon era, ’50s-tinged, mildly punkish and sublimely tuneless, but there were a lot worse bands to “experience” at the Rathskellar and whatnot, and so the Eaters made their mark, not that anything ever came of it. And so, yadda yadda, here’s a new single by them, a corporate-punk-speed snoozer that sounds somewhat Gang Of Four-ish and Buzzcocks-ish at first, and then, right when you think a giant-ass hook-fadeout is coming, it just flops and expires. Nothing changes, folks, remember that. C

Playlist

• Yay, Oct. 13 is a Friday the Thirteenth, I’m sure all the new albums coming out that day will jibe with the occasion in a manner most apropos! But first things first, fam, wait till I tell you about my visit to Manchvegas’ new rock club, Angel City Music Hall, the other week! It takes a lot to get me out of my trash-pile, um, I mean my ultra-modern, totally organized office, but when my PR friends the Brenners in New York City told me that Crowbar was coming to play their crazy sludge-metal tuneage right here in da city, I was like “I’m your huckleberry!” So I contacted a couple of bros to go see them, like our local rock ’n’ roll mastermind Otto Kinzel of Dust Prophet and friend of the Hippo Dan Szczesny, but they made up excuses, so I went by myself. The band was deafeningly loud, which was nice, and the lady who runs the place calls people “Hon,” which is also nice.
• OK, I don’t know if you people remember that techno soundsystem called Justice, and how they named one of their albums “†” (you know, like, “cross”) just to be a pain to everyone who had to write an article about them and hunt down that particular ASCII character. If you do, you also remember that they tried to make the super-noisy Ed Banger sound happen, which it did for little while, but — oh for pete’s sake, I’m going totally off-track, whatever, there’s a band that started up around the same time as “†”, called †††, a darkwave/dream-pop/witch-house project often referred to as Crosses by journos who hate hunting for ASCII characters, and guess who’s in it, that’s right, it’s Deftones singer Chino Moreno and his buddy Shaun Lopez, from the band Far! I’m sure you’ve heard about them if you’re a ‘Tones-head, amirite, but this is news to me, so in order to catch up to all you hippies I’m going to go listen to a single from their new album, Goodnight, God Bless, I Love U, Delete, called “Invisible Hand.” So it starts off with some sort of glitchy-ish techno beat, and then the Deftones guy suddenly starts jumping up and down all hip-hop style, yelling and ranting about something, and then there’s a barrage of angry Death Grips-inspired haunted-house-metal. I don’t really hear anything compelling going on here, but feel free to pretend to find something redeemable about it.
• Oh no, come on, not another Canadian indie band, I’m really not in the mood! OK, it’s Metric, so there’s an outside chance that this might be salvageable, even though the singer is involved with Broken Social Scene, I don’t really know right now. The band’s new album, Formentera II, features the single “Who Would You Be For Me,” a sort of ’90s cowboy-goth-tinged chill-pop jam that’s not unlistenable, it’s OK.
• We’ll wrap up the week with Australian/South African singing man Troye Sivan, who portrayed young Wolverine in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. OK, so Something To Give Each Other, his new full-length, includes the single “Rush,” a house-chilldown whose video features Sivan smoking weed out of a banana and singing gently through his Auto-Tune. Yay, Auto-Tune, what would we do with it!

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).

Wolves in the Throne Room, Crypt of Ancestral Knowledge (Relapse Records)

I remember this Olympia, WA trio from way back; the name impressed me but the music — a mixture of various disparate Bathory/Boris/Neurosis thingamajigs microwaved to extreme-metal-ish perfection for the benefit of beginner indie-metal stans — didn’t. 20 years on, this is more of the same, music that’d be perfect for gore-horror-movie man-to-ghoul transformation sequences, you know, waves of raucous, tortured monster-yelling buoyed by (place name of earl-Aughts-era Epitaph Records band here) guitar spazzing and such and so, nothing you haven’t heard before but (more or less) epic toward a bargain-bin fashion, intended to impress the easily impressed. I’ve never liked this kind of stuff, but if demon-caterwauling, pre-Sunn(((O))) noise-thrash and etc is your bag, don’t let me stop you, not that I ever have, to my eternal chagrin. By the way, “Initiates of the White Hart” starts off with a mandolin, not that that explains anything, and “Crown of Stone” is like Enya on downers. A —Eric W. Saeger

Elm Street, The Great Tribulation (Massacre Records)

Well, what a nice surprise this is. Seems like 90 percent of the jazz albums I’ve been getting for review lately have been breezy dark-coffee-house exercises (luckily there’s been a lull in singer-oriented Big Book projects; not that I don’t like hearing the 4,749th interpretation of “Nature Boy,” there’s just no need for it in current_year), but this one, the debut EP from the Manhattan School Of Music pianist, is deeply ritzy ambiance, stuff you’d expect to hear at a snobby wedding reception for which all the stops have been pulled. The difference comes by way of the fact that Fujiwara is supported by a four-piece string section, along with a vibes person and a pretty chill drummer; as well, our heroine tables a pretty dazzling, dextrous version of Scott Joplin’s “Maple Leaf Rag,” and, in a really courageous effort, offers a retrofitted version of a Japanese children’s song from her earlier life (“Hotaru Koi”). This is well worth the trip, folks. A+

Playlist

• Like every Friday, Oct. 6 will be a day on which new albums are released in a giant gust, there’s no place left to hide, let’s go look at the — wait, folks, wait, I can’t believe it, guess who’s got an album coming out, you’ll simply die: It’s none other than 1980s boy-man-toddler Rick Astley, I’m not kidding you! Astley is from the U.K., because no one else would have him, and his claim to fame is being the subject of the “RickRoll” internet meme that was first discovered in a newly unearthed Babylonian tomb from 12,000 BC, but it never gets old, am I right, folks? It’s the prank where you post something to everyone on your social media space and tell them to click a link in order to find out more information, but what happens instead is you’re sent to a YouTube of Astley, looking like a preteen, singing his one hit, in a super-serious man-voice, the famous awful song “Never Gonna Give You Up!” Ha ha, OK, Billboard announcement page, fun time’s over, if you think I’m actually going to search YouTube for a link to a “new” Rick Astley song, nudge-wink, from a totally fake album called Are We There Yet and then suddenly find myself watching Doogie Howser singing “Never Gonna Give You Up,” um, no, I’ll have you know I’m not that dumb! OK fine, I’m going, let’s see what this is, this quote-unquote, air-quotes, “new Rick Astley song,” which is called (I’m serious, folks) “Never Gonna Stop.” Huh, hold the phone, guys, it’s not anywhere near as stupid as you’re imagining, it’s bonk-bonk piano-soul, and Astley is singing sort of like Bill Withers, I would actually listen to this song if I didn’t have exactly 2,593 other CDs in my car.
• The Rural Alberta Advantage is a Canadian indie trio, but other than that, they’re OK! Their new album, The Rise & The Fall, includes a single titled “Conductors” that is really quite muscular, a loping strummer that evokes Kings Of Leon and even a little bit of old-school emo.
• My wife is from Texas, so it’s always hilarious when I troll her yankee-style. For example, she worked super-hard for years to lose her southern drawl, so every couple of weeks I start talking in an Alabama trucker accent, like the “Git ’Er Done” guy, Larry The Cable Guy, and after an hour or so, she starts to slip and talk about eating grits and whatnot in a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader accent, it’s so funny, you’d have to be there, but another prank I like pulling is when we’re watching TV and I go off to write my book or this column or check in on my social media friends, I change the channel to CMT, because Reba McEntire’s sitcom is always on it, I don’t think they have any other shows, and before you know it there she is, drawling like Reba. Endless laughs that never get old, fam, but in this case it’s relevant, because a new Reba album is coming at us fast, titled Not That Fancy! Now just let me go and — wait, the entire world has been rickrolled by Reba, because from what I’m seeing this isn’t an album, it’s some dumb audiobook, written by a bored ghostwriter, I’m sure, so forget it, false alarm, at least I didn’t have to go listen to some new Reba song.
• • We’ll put this week in the books with Dogstar, because their new album, Somewhere Between The Power Lines And Palm Trees, has such a long, space-filling name that I’ll finally have time to catch up on Amy Diaz’s film reviews and see if one single movie that has come out in the last three years is worth watching, I seriously doubt it! Anyway, Dogstar’s new single, “Breach,” is a grindy ’90s-rock shepherd’s pie of Marilyn Manson, Weezer and — wait, the bass player is actual Keanu Reeves, you people need to tell me these things before I start riffing! This is actually cool! —Eric W. Saeger

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).

Zooey Celeste, Restless Thoughts (ATO Records)

Meanwhile on the planet XT-431, we have here a collection of tunes from this southern California-based dude, who’s busily trying to craft his own chill-techno trip, revolving around a genre he’s dubbed “astral-pop,” which his PR people cleverly promote as a “soundtrack for nocturnal driving and an immediate conduit for lasting transcendence.” I myself meditate once a week, usually, and this stuff wouldn’t interfere with the practice’s process of trying to become a witness to one’s own passing thoughts, but it’s not as TM as he might like to think. OK, there were probably a lot of drugs involved, let’s just say that, but I could be wrong; a lot of the imagery comes from a novel he wrote a while back, the feel of which, he professes, is “somewhere between Quentin Tarantino and the Bhagavad Gita.” Oh, I almost forgot, the music is gently woven tech-pop of the Goldfrapp sort by way of 1960s Donovan, all of it made uniquely magnetic because Celeste sounds a lot like the Cure’s Robert Smith. A lot of people would be down with this, absolutely. A

Arina Fujiwara, Neon (self-produced)

Well, what a nice surprise this is. Seems like 90 percent of the jazz albums I’ve been getting for review lately have been breezy dark-coffee-house exercises (luckily there’s been a lull in singer-oriented Big Book projects; not that I don’t like hearing the 4,749th interpretation of “Nature Boy,” there’s just no need for it in current_year), but this one, the debut EP from the Manhattan School Of Music pianist, is deeply ritzy ambiance, stuff you’d expect to hear at a snobby wedding reception for which all the stops have been pulled. The difference comes by way of the fact that Fujiwara is supported by a four-piece string section, along with a vibes person and a pretty chill drummer; as well, our heroine tables a pretty dazzling, dextrous version of Scott Joplin’s “Maple Leaf Rag,” and, in a really courageous effort, offers a retrofitted version of a Japanese children’s song from her earlier life (“Hotaru Koi”). This is well worth the trip, folks. A+

Playlist

• On Friday, Sept. 29, we’ll see a new LP from hilariously overrated singing person Ed Sheeran, called Autumn Variations! I’ve always thought that his fans just feel sorry for him because he is a ginger neckbeard, but what do I know; I mean, I did see the video where he went on a stupid talk show and “proved” his claim that every pop song in the world is an old Beatles song, I forget which one, and he accomplished that by pulling out his guitar and asking the audience to give him a song title, and then he “proved” it had the same chords as “Let It Be” or whatever by slowwwly and sneakily changing the chords to fit his insane theory. Your mileage may vary, of course, who cares, but that brings us to his latest song advance, “A Beautiful Game.” It is a piano-pop song that is pretty and oafishly show-stopping, just like every Zoomer-targeted pop song being put out today, and I’ll at least admit that it isn’t a variation on “Let It Be.” No, indeed; cleverly, it rips off Joan Osborne’s “One Of Us” at the beginning and U2’s “Beautiful Day” as things “progress.” What a talented human, that ginger neckbeard, wouldn’t you say?
• Naturally I always confuse Blonde Redhead with Concrete Blonde, who wouldn’t? Sit Down For Dinner is the former’s new LP, and the latest single, “Before,” is very gentle and mellow and chill, evoking Fleetwood Mac stealing from REM. It’s not bad.
• Finally, let’s have a laugh at the expense of former Pitchfork darlings Animal Collective, whose new full-length, Isn’t It Now, is on the trucks, headed to the malls and all that happy stuff. I have not kept track of this band, because why would anyone do that anyway, but I do give them credit for totally owning the “tuneless fractal-indie” space for those 10 minutes, remember those days? The single, “Soul Capturer,” sounds like Vampire Weekend trying to be Mungo Jerry. Does anyone seriously have any deep love for music like this, like at all?

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).

10 Miles 2 Neptune, Change (self-released)

This New Hampshire-based fedora-pop duo features singer-songwriters Mike Birch of Derry and Merrimack’s Tammy Jann, who, for the last eight years, have co-run a Nashua-based songwriting group, I’m told, which I take to mean that they’re community-minded, which the state’s music community could always use, wouldn’t you say? Their songs are, as you’d expect, reminiscent of Joni Mitchell, Stephen Stills, all that stuff, you know, Bonnaroo-bait comprising ’60s rock, jam band stuff, and so on and so forth. “The duo’s challenge with their first CD release,” they tell us press people, “was to bring together Tammy’s lyrics and Mike’s music to create songs with an original sound and style.” I’d say that’s true; the songs are quite listenable, and if you’re, you know, a gentle soul who thinks Neil Young is way too heavy metal, you’ll probably like it. The production — which I only bring up because it’s really the only thing local musicians usually care about — is fine. A-

Rich Hinman, Memorial (Colorfield Records)

You know, if the only commercial CDs I received at this desk were all put out by studio hacks who were sick of being considered hacks by music journalism hacks, I’d be spending a lot more of my thesaurus.com time hunting for synonyms for upbeat-sounding adjectives instead of things like “humdrum” and “unlistenable.” Hinman’s pedal steel guitar has made appearances on recording sessions for songs by the likes of k.d. lang, Maren Morris and Amythyst Kiah, and I’m sure I’ve noticed his name on many other things, so I was a bit surprised that this is his first solo album. It’s trippy but kindhearted ambient stuff tilted in a Nel Cline direction; Hinman busies himself most of the time trying to make his pedal steel sound too breezily divine to be a pedal steel, put it that way, and there’s a lot of quirky, awkward but fascinating indie vibe along the way, found sounds turning into endless ringouts, plenty of cavitation, etc. Very listenable. A

Playlist

• Ack, it’s about to get really freezing out there, isn’t it, because the next batch of random CD releases will magically appear on Sept. 22, just two months before Thanksgiving, can you even believe it, folks! In order to avoid thinking about sliding down hopelessly slidey hills in my car, which will be happening any minute now, let’s subject-change to something that’s a zillion times more pleasant, namely sexy singing lady Kylie Minogue, whose new album, Tension, is on the way to the stores, or whatever places people visit to buy stuff and randomly clog the aisles in our super-smart Information Age! Yikes, this song is so sexy and hot, like what Britney was doing for about five minutes, euro-trash trance-pop for runway models to stare vacantly to, I still love this kind of thing. Speaking of velvet-rope hotness, I wonder if Kylie’s ever done a jam with Tiësto, let me go look. Nope, apparently not, but DJ Flyboy once did a mashup of Kylie’s “Confide in Me” and Jonas Blue/Tiësto’s “Ritual.” OK, you have no idea what I’m talking about, do you? That’s a shame!
  
• Unfashionably late-breaking: At this writing I’m hoping to attend a heavy metal rock ’n’ roll concert in Manchester at a place called Angel City Music Hall, a venue located within the Spider Bite building on Elm Street. An old public relations bro named Dave, who’s based in New York City, is helping to push the awesome, awesome New Orleans-based sludge-metal band Crowbar, who will be playing at Angel City on Saturday, Sept. 23, you should totally go!
  
• Whew, I’m glad to report that our culture hasn’t devolved to the point that if you go on Google and type “Lydia L” the first thing the all-knowing search engine suggests isn’t “Lydia Lunch,” but the name right under that is, as it should be, Lydia Loveless, the alt-country indie-rocker, whose new LP, Nothing’s Gonna Stand in My Way Again, is due out in a few hours or whatnot! The teaser track is “Sex And Money,” a strummy mid-tempo gloom-along whose melody sort of reminds me of REO Speedwagon’s “Ridin’ The Storm Out.” Other than that, it’s OK!
  
• I always get Teenage Fanclub mixed up with New Young Pony Club, mostly because I couldn’t care less about either of them! But don’t let that stop you from reading on: Nothing Lasts Forever, the band’s new full-length, floated a single a few months ago called “Foreign Land,” in which they come even closer to sounding like The Byrds than they ever did, which will please you or disgust you depending on your taste!
  
• And finally, let’s look at swamp-monster thrash-metal band Cannibal Corpse, and their latest “slab,” Chaos Horrific! To be completely honest with you, I’m more familiar with the literally thousands of bands that are said to sound like them — for instance whichever one did the Occlused In Occlusity album, which is so obscure that Google is asking me “what the blazes are you even babbling about,” — than I am with Cannibal Corpse itself! But sure, I’ll go listen to one of these new songs, “Summoned For Sacrifice.” It is “spider walking metal” as I call it, like the guitar just does a “boo-bee-dah-boo-DEE-boo-dum-bee” in mid-tempo cadence, it’s perfect musical ambiance for coming at your little brother with a tarantula walking on your arm, which of course you plan to drop in his lap so his bowl of Count Chocula goes flying. And the singer is doing the Cookie Monster thing instead of doing any sort of singing, because it’s really hard for tarantula-owning suburbanites to find actual singers for their garage bands.

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).

Mitski, The Land Is Inhospitable And So Are We (Dead Oceans Records)

Generally speaking, I’m late to the ball with this indie-piano-pop princess, who’s been making albums since 2012. In fact, I wasn’t aware that she’d opened for The Pixies a few years ago, which was what probably prompted Pitchfork Media to give her some reckless love with her 2018 album, Be The Cowboy. Thus she’s truly arrived, following up 2022’s Laurel Hell and its frozen Enya-meets-Goldfrapp timelessness with a new set of tunes bolstered by a choir and an orchestra in some places. She’s moonbatty here on “Bug Like An Angel,” but not to Bjork-level; she’s ultimately too polished and Tori Amos-like for that, but in that strummy track she’s also got some Aimee Mann steez going on. I hope you’re ready for (yet more) Pink Floyd-speed drudge-pop if you’ll be indulging this: In “Star,” she comes off like Lana Del Rey’s lonely, bookish sister, staring up at the sky with hope, brimming with grace, evincing elegance. Only thing to complain about is, as others have stated, the cover’s font, which is ludicrously bad, but aside from that, she has entered the most hallowed of halls, no question. A+

Lauren Calve, Shift (self-released)

So today I learned that “DMV” is an acronym that doesn’t only designate a local Department of Motor Vehicles, it’s also short for the area of the country that comprises “District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia,” which is where this contemporary rock singer hails from. We can proceed briskly with this; as a rule of thumb, describing a female folk singer with the catchall “contemporary rock singer” generally clues people in to the distinct possibility that the tunes in question sound quite a bit like Sheryl Crow, which is very true in this instance, the album being a collection of inarguably well-written, slightly Americana/bluegrass-tinged songs guided by Tom Petty principles, and yes, she sounds like a more breezy Sheryl Crow during most of them. But she’s also informed by the ’90s-radio-pop I assume she grew up on; she’s obviously into Alanis, being that “Pretend to Forget” sounds like her for (the better) half of the song. Soccer-parent-rock with a jagged little edge; no harm done here. A-

Playlist

• Hear ye, hear ye, and such-and-so, there are new music albums being released on Sept. 15, just like every other Friday! You know, folks, a lot of people ask me, “You’re so eclectic and scattershot with your award-winning music column and your book-writing, you must be super-busy. Are there, like, any bands you wish you had more time to investigate and get to know better?” To that I will honestly reply that I wish I had more time to listen to albums by Savannah, Georgia, sludge-metal band Baroness, because what little I’ve heard of them over the years has always been pretty cool. Of course, then again, I would also be keen on listening to Radiohead until I liked them, like all you coolios do, but I’ve read with great interest the rantings of former Boston Phoenix and Your Band Sucks writer Dr. David Thorpe, who’s tried valiantly but never liked anything Radiohead has ever done; usually he defaults to mocking Thom Yorke for having unnecessary alphabet characters in both of his names! But yes, I’ve heard Baroness before, after being lured into their trip by their awesome album covers, and, truth be told, I didn’t know they had a girl frontperson, and no, the fact that they’re named Baroness didn’t clue me in, smart aleck, who has time to keep up with all this stuff? But look at this, I’m already five years behind in my study of this cool band, because they replaced Summer Welch with Gina Gleason (formerly of Misstallica, the all-female Metallica tribute band) back in 2018, can you even believe it? Right, I know, who cares, the new Baroness LP is Stone, and it’s out this Friday, featuring the latest awesome cover art by the band’s leader (and only consistent member), John Dyer Baizley! I was first exposed to them in 2007, when their Red Album came out, and I was like “what even is this,” like it blended sort-of-progressive metal with some roots-emo sounds and added some pop elements as well. Anyhow, the new record features a single, “Last Word,” that continues the band’s tradition of being a Tool-like band that’s a hundred times better than Tool in mawkish-semi-ballad-mode; it’s actually very accessible for a neo-metal-pop tune, remindful of Isis and Bury Your Dead within the same song. If any of this is news to you, you need to get hip to this band, is what I’m saying.
  
• Yikes, another blast from my questionable past, it’s British neo-soul lady Corinne Bailey Rae, of all people, with a new album titled Black Rainbows! I haven’t heard anything from her since her 2006 self-titled album, believe it or not; her last four albums have actually charted quite high in the U.S., but I haven’t exactly been pelted with Corinne Bailey Rae news over the past few years, probably because her super-nice chill hasn’t led to any big singles here. “Peach Velvet Sky,” her new single, will probably be similarly underserved here; it’s a deeply soulful, really nice piano ballad, in which she dazzles with technical brilliance, meaning no one will get it, since she’s not singing about badonkadonks or whatnot.
  
• Oh, how cool, a new album from Diddy, called The Love Album: Off The Grid! You kids know who he is, right? Nope, not the guy who pretends to play drums for the Weeknd. OK, forget it, he was once a great and powerful rapper, you kids should totally check out the album trailer, featuring Diddy talking about how we’re in the “lev era,” you know, when everyone has private planes or whatever he’s babbling about.
  
• Lastly, it’s ancient dusty stoner mummy Willie Nelson, with an album called Bluegrass! The teaser single, “Still Is Still Moving To Me,” sounds like unplugged Outlaws. It’s not bad, for a song performed by a literal mummy!

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).