Category: Albums

Wolfgang Haffner, Silent World (BMG Records)

Jumping the gun a bit on this one, as it’s not out until the end of January, but it’s worth knowing about if you’re a jazzhead on a budget. German drummer and bandleader Haffner is a dreamer in sound whose real gift is being able to combine groove and bounce with a wide sound palette comprising cool jazz, tango and other Spanish flavors, all brought together in a unique way that creates a special kind of tension. In recent times, Haffner has drawn inspiration from external sources: lots of guests here, the constants being Simon Oslender (piano and keyboards) and Sebastian Studnitzky (trumpet); Haffner claims it’s his “dream band,” and I’m in no position to argue the point, given that the result is indeed rather sweeping. The record is claimed to be conceptual, nine pieces whittled down from 18 songs Haffner originally wrote for it; it progresses nicely from the sturdy “Here and Now” until the finale, “Forever and Ever,” a minimalist (but not entirely morose) number made of piano and bass. A

Fire Sale, “A Fool’s Errand” / “We Dance For Sorrow” (Negative Progression Records)

Here we go, more emo. This four-piece band is said to be a punk rock supergroup, but if you don’t mind my pedantry, it’s a power-pop thing, which, as I’ve said many times, isn’t quite the same level of scatterbrained derangement as actual punk. It all sounds the same to me, only because I don’t really care about it and never really have. But I’ll belay all that for our purposes and point out that this two-song dry run pulls out all the stops in trying to put the Negative Progression label back on the map, after the owner of the imprint (which hosted a stage on the 2003 Vans Warped Tour and released 30 albums) decided to bag it eight years ago to work as an attorney (well isn’t that the punkest, am I right?). The bass player is from Face To Face, and the other guys were in The Ataris and Ann Beretta, and it’s quite listenable for what it is. Whoever’s singing on the B-side, “We Dance For Sorrow,” has a leathery, sturdy voice that evokes old post-punk stuff like Lords Of The New Church, while “A Fool’s Errand” is Black Flag-speed Hoobastank-ish and very catchy. I don’t hate these guys at all. A

Playlist

• Dec. 16 looms over my head like one of those “dementor” bros from Harry Potter, just swinging his arms and hollering all ghostly or whatever dementors do, and of course also reminding me that Dec. 16 is the last general-release Friday for new albums before the holiday week, when there will basically be no new albums, so I’ll have to make something up. Actually, now that I’m looking at this mess, there’s not a lot of albums coming out this week, and I will have to scrounge. Ah, here’s one, the latest release from Circa Survive, titled Two Dreams, their first full-length since 2017’s The Amulet. None of that means anything to me. All I know is that Circa Survive is an emo band from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, which means they’re batting with two strikes right off the jump here. They’ve been around for a while now; their first album, Juturna, did have some screamy tunes, like “Act Appalled,” which did point to a slightly more-melodic-than-usual flavor of nerd rock — OK, it was pretty cool, is what I’m trying to say, but I still hear it all the props I dropped on Good Charlotte for whatever the song was, so let’s just keep it between ourselves, whattaya say. OK, so the new record — wait a second, hold it, late breaking, from some website that knows things (nme.com): “After months of rumors, Circa Survive have confirmed to fans that they’re no longer an active band.” Well there goes that, but Two Dreams is indeed due out on the 16th, and one of the tunes, “Sleep Well,” isn’t emo at all, more like early Hanson doing a slightly trip-hop thing that has lo-fi drums. It’s pretty good, and that’s probably why they broke up; it’s always risky to make good music, you know?

• Jonathan Blake Williams Jr., better known as Jabee, is a hip-hop artist and actor from Oklahoma City. Chuck D of Public Enemy and Sway Calloway both think he’s awesome, so I guess it’s OK for me to say he’s awesome, because, you know Chuck D is awesome. Anyway, this fella’s new EP, Good, will be in the stores and streaming services within the next few hours, standing as the newest EP in a series of them. Reaction has been mixed so far with adjectives like “nostalgic” and “unoriginal” being the most common when people discuss it. The track “Black Star” is stoner-mellow and pretty trippy beat-wise.

• In edgelady news, Mimi Barks is a U.K.-based trap-metal artist (originally from Berlin, Germany) who likes to pour on the anger in Slipknot-ish fashion. Other than that, there’s no information to be found on her on the entire internet other than the fact that she likes to change her day-glo hair color every few days or whatnot. Her new album, Deadgirl, has a title track that’s pretty much what anyone would expect “trap-metal” to sound like: She sings in a sort of Marilyn Manson style, and then there’s a standard trap beat that’s begging for attention from goths, some Death Grips-ish flourishes, things like that. Apparently she’s going on tour with goth dude Combichrist, a show I’d attend if it were a little more worth risking Covid and all that happy stuff.

• Finally we have Atlanta hip-hop crew Germ & $uicideboy$, whose favorite thing is to put people with really gross teeth on their album covers. The latest in their DirtyNasty series is a new album called Dirtiestnastiest$uicide, and yes, the cover is as disturbing as anything else they’ve pulled. Only thing to be found online is a live version of some tune that’ll be on this record, and it’s a lot like Beastie Boys, which I’m sure will bring ’em lots of underage customers.

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).

-(16)-, Into Dust (Relapse Records)

Come to think of it, it’s been a while since I covered a sludge-metal album, which is weird, because I usually get a lot of jollies out of that genre: usually you can count on hearing stuff that treads some sort of middle ground between Black Sabbath and Melvins, depending on whether or not the singer can actually sing at all. These guys are from Los Angeles, and this, their eighth album, is more or less a conceptual trip that revolves around living a generally miserable life, starting with “Misfortune Teller,” a borderline math-metal joint in which an eviction notice is served to some poor dude in the wake of Hurricane Irma; singer and second-banana guitarist Bobby Ferry does a pretty good Crowbar imitation, indicating that their template pays obeisance to the genre’s gold standards. “Dead Eyes” is good stuff too, aping the vibe of early Ministry; “Scrape the Rocks” shoots for doomy Kyuss respectability and largely succeeds. A

Journey, Freedom (BMG Records)

Didn’t get to this one when it first landed in my inbox in July, but as always, it’s a good bet that half the people who were big fans of this arena-rock band back in the day are totally unaware that they are still at it. Yes, the legend continues, after guitarist Neil Schon married the bleached blonde who, with a previous loverboy, had somehow crashed an Obama party when he was still president, and then there was the one about how, after singer Steve Perry had had enough of it, they hired a new singer after seeing him karaokeing Journey tunes on YouTube. I’ll gladly cop actually to liking some of the jacked-hormone stuff that was on their 2005 full-length album Generations, and there’s more of that here, with the morose-rockout-morose opening tune “Together We Run,” the Escape-microwaving sounds of “Don’t Give Up On Us,” and so on. No new tricks here, but that’s the punchline; when you’ve become an AOR meme band there’s no need to ditch the original formula. A

Playlist

• Yikes, Dec. 9 already, and me with a mere paucity of albums to talk about, because all the albums have already been released and are being loaded onto Santa’s magic sleigh, to be dropped off at the homes of people who still buy things like albums and asbestos flooring! But wait a minute, folks, there are actually a few new records that have hit my all-seeing radar, starting with NIKSHOWW, a rapper from someplace or other, Google only found like 100 things associated with the guy, but he’s obviously a highbrow bookworm type, as he was a feat guest on Fiction Fake’s “L. A. U. G. H (Laugh at Ugly Generic Hoes),” which, you can tell by the title, is commonly played at retired accountants’ 50th wedding anniversary bashes. Oh, who is this guy anyway, let’s just move this along, his forthcoming new album, Anxiety Ridden Isolationist, his second. Not a lot of info to be found on this album, but his latest song on Spotify, “Fatal Shot,” is okay once you get past the subtle-ish Autotune. The beat is comprised of gloomy piano and (spoiler) trap drums, and his flow is pretty cool even though his lines (sample lyric: “Everybody that’s in tune knows I’m in a different lane / I will fulfill my dreams of controlling center stage”) are kind of — OK, massively — contrived and old, like if people rapped in ancient Egypt, these are the kinds of rhymes they spat for the entertainment of mummies and whatever. But that’s OK!

• French Montana is a rapper from Morocco, or more specifically Casablanca, the largest city in Morocco, and I shall talk briefly about his new album, Coke Boys 6, here in my column. Feats will include Max B, D Thang, Cheese, Kenzo B and Stove God; it’s the sixth installment of his Coke Boys mixtape series, the first since 2020’s Coke Boys 5. Montana’s mushmouthed style is fun in its way; there’s a sample of “Money Heist Edition” on Instagram if you’re curious to hear how “underground” he is (not very, judging by the rather unadventurous 1970s girl-group-flavored beat.

• The Lumineers are an alternative folk band from Denver, Colorado. They enjoy such healthy pastimes as playing unnecessary cellos and wearing cabbie hats in order to hide bald spots or Martian antennae, whichever. The band’s principals are heavily into Top 40 radio regulars like Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan and Tom Petty, so, no there is no black metal or chopped-and-screwed sampledelia on this album, a 10th Anniversary Edition of their debut LP, The Lumineers, but I did check for that just in case. “Stubborn Love” is probably the most popular tune from this album, a loping number you probably mistook for an Arcade Fire B-side the first time you heard it; definitely a Tom Petty vibe going on there.

• We’ll wrap up the week with singer/actress and iconic punk fixture Nina Hagen, who will release her 14th album, Unity, this week! Fun fact, when Angela Merkel ended her 16-year chancellorship of Germany last December, she chose Hagen’s song “Du hast den Farbfilm vergessen (You Forgot the Colour Film)” as one of the three tunes to be played at her Großer Zapfenstreich military leaving ceremony. Yes, that’s what happens to old punks, they become the opposite of punk. The title track of this new album is a funky, Warhol-esque pastiche of “woke” epithets and bad singing, but don’t let that stop you.

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).

Monster Magnet, Test Patterns: Vol. 1 (God Unknown Records)

Holy cats, a new Monster Magnet album, folks — there’s a jolt to the brain, isn’t it? They suddenly showed up from out of nowhere — a.k.a. Red Bank, New Jersey — working a noise rock angle that was, and I quote, “a cosmos away from the major-label, alternative rock boom that would suck the band into the shiny MTV world of the early to middle 90s.” In other words they were pretty useful, and antidote to all the Hawkwinds and Nirvana wannabes that made the 90s so useless, and this is more of the same, two versions of a 25-odd-minute-long fuzz-jam called “Tab.” The first version is a remix from 2021, pure Brian Jonestown Massacre meets Norman Greenbaum’s “Spirit in the Sky” but without any real musical purpose aside from being trippy, and then comes the original version, from a 1988 demo, which is virtually indistinguishable from the last 150-odd songs King Gizzard has put out this fiscal quarter. And here I’ll bet you’d thought these guys were gone forever, didn’t you? Weird, or what? B

The White Buffalo, Year Of The Dark Horse (Snakefarm Records)

When the pandemic put everyone in the entertainment business into stasis chambers, people did different things to stay sane. I know of two guys who picked up the drums just to stay sane, but this fellow here, Oregon-born Jake Smith, a guitarist by trade, picked up a synthesizer to make this LP, the follow-up to his 2020 full-length On The Widow’s Walk, more of a creative challenge as he “embarked on a voyage of discovery.” Well isn’t that special, and this isn’t a synth tour-de-force, but it does work in many ways, especially if you dug his early Americana-rock (he hates it when people call it that). The first tune, “Kingdom For A Fool,” begins with the same sleepy-but-buzzed-out vibe as Bread’s “Guitar Man,” but then it’s on, folks, Smith’s vocal tabling some unabashed rawk-melodics I wasn’t expecting at all. The sound is pretty full and rich as far as California-steeped radio-pop goes (he’s living in Cali these days, for the record), for example “C’mon Come Up Come Out” has a Red Hot Chili Peppers laziness to it, and if you like Beck, you’ll like a lot of this stuff. A

Playlist

• Land’s sakes, Jane, stop this crazy thing, we’re into the first week of December already, and there will be (I hope) a few new albums slated for release on Friday, Dec. 2. Ah, here’s a few of the little rascals, the first thing to which I’ll give a funny sideways look is (or course) a box set (because box sets and reissues make great holiday gifts for record collectors who already have everything they don’t need), specifically the big fat Sail On Sailor – 1972: Super Deluxe Box Set from the Beach Boys, who are celebrating their 60th year of making totally groovy music for Woodstock druggies or whatever their mission statement is. But now it’s time for today’s big reveal: I, multiple-award-winning music journo that I am, had no idea whatsoever that the Beach Boys were the ones who did that song in the first place. No, seriously, I’d always figured it had been some Chicago-wannabe 1970s band like Stealers Wheel, but no, it was the Beach Boys. I never really liked that song all that much, but you guys remember when it was playing over some scene in The Departed involving hams or whatever, and it was so edgy and cool? No? Well maybe you should go watch it again, just try to get past Jack Nicholson’s usual overacting and all that, it was a cool scene. And so on and so forth, this $120 heap of CDs and nonsense covers the Boys’ 1972 albums Carl And The Passions and Holland. Says here “This 6-CD set features a 48-page book with extensive liner notes, rare photos and more. The collection includes remastered versions of the original albums as well as outtakes and session highlights from the original Mount Vernon and Fairway EP from Holland, plus a previously unreleased concert from Carnegie Hall, 1972. Also included are dozens of studio and live additional tracks, sessions and alternate versions.” Yow, all I needed was a normal version of “Sail On Sailor,” but instead it’s basically a hilariously overpriced pu pu platter of mostly chicken fingers instead of the beef teriyaki strip I really only wanted in the first place. How do I shut this off?

• Los Angeles skate-punk veterans NOFX have been a thing since 1983, but they still know where to buy Day-Glo Hawaiian shirts, K-Mart cutoff shorts and all the other parts of their clown outfits, so here’s to those guys and their new album, titled Double Album! Wait a second, though, guys, wait a second, you’ll die when you hear this, are you ready? Right, it’s not actually a double album, just a single album, with 10 songs! The irony, I’m sorry, I’m really getting the vapors and need to lay down with my smelling salts, land’s sakes alive. So, whatever, appropriately enough, the test-drive single is called “Punk Rock Cliché,” and it’s pretty gosh darn cool if you don’t mind that the main riff is pretty much stolen from Thin Lizzy’s “Thunder and Lightning,” and the whole tune will be mistaken for a disposable Hoobastank filler song, but that’s the price of fame: help to invent a genre one year, and then watch as a bunch of 18-year-old scamps put you out of business. Seriously, how do you stop this crazy thing?

• St. Louis-based hip-hop producer/DJ/etc. Metro Boomin has only been around since 2009, but one of the first questions that comes up when you Google the guy is, “Is he retired yet?” Yes, that’s how ancient you are, I’m sorry for you. Heroes & Villains is his new record, and the beats are epic (but annoyingly trappy) in the single “Gods Don’t Bleed,” which features 21 Savage & Travis Scott. You might like it.

• We’ll end with Cleveland-bred techno-dude Galcher Lustwerk and his new 100% Galcher LP. “Put On” is a nice, hypnotic bit of mid-aughts deep house, unadventurous but perfect mall ambiance for chilling out to while your girlfriend tries on dresses she’ll regret buying.

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).

Soen, Atlantis (Silver Lining Music)

With Trans-Siberian Orchestra’s traditional holiday tour coming soon, our thoughts turn of course not to Santa Claus and all that stuff but instead to progressive metal bands, like this Swedish one, which first hit the scene in 2004 as a “supergroup” consisting of former Opeth drummer Martin Lopez, ex-Testament bassist Steve Di Giorgio, Willowtree singer Joel Ekelöf and some dude named Joakim Platbarzdis on guitar. I don’t know if it’s still considered a supergroup, but they’re good, if you like epic prog-metal and whatnot, especially live albums from same, which is what this is. I don’t know how “live” this album actually is; if I’m reading this right, they just re-rubbed a bunch of their po-faced old stuff, opening the set with “Antagonist,” which is a lot more Scorpions than it is Megadeth. There’s a version of Slipknot’s “Snuff” added for variety, but most of the time it’s a mixture of different but usually depressing sci-fi-convention ambience. Is what it is. B+

Louis Armstrong, The Standard Oil Sessions (Dot Time Records)

Any list of the greatest jazz musicians of all time would automatically include Louis Armstrong, Jack Teagarden and Earl “Fatha” Hines. From 1948 through 1951, those three legends played as Louis Armstrong and His All Stars. Unfortunately they didn’t make many studio recordings, and most of the live recordings that have survived are in really bad shape. But on Jan. 20, 1950, Armstrong, Hines and Teagarden appeared in a San Francisco recording studio to record a number of songs for Standard Oil’s “Musical Map of America” program. Teagarden got to do his signature “Basin Street Blues” while Hines performed a show-stopping version of his “Boogie Woogie on St. Louis Blues.” But it was Armstrong who was in the spotlight throughout, in peak form vocally and especially on the trumpet, improvising completely different solos on “Muskrat Ramble,” “Panama,” “Struttin’ with Some Barbecue” and other signature numbers. “Classic” would almost be an insult; this is timeless stuff. A+

Playlist

• Great, here come the holidays, which means there’ll be barely anything for me to write about here in a couple of weeks, in this multiple award-winning column. But for now I am safe, because look at all these albums that you will be able to buy at Walmart or 7-Eleven or Petsmart, you know, anyplace that still sells albums! Look gang, can you even believe all these — oops, wait a minute, it’s Black Friday this week, and the next general-release date for albums is Nov. 25, so there’s no time to put out any new albums in time for the holidays, I’m in some hot water now, just great, holy catfish! Well, we’ll have to do something here, and you probably don’t want to hear about all the ins and outs of my last medical exam, so let’s ’ave a look at the new album by Stormzy, titled This Is What I Mean, coming out this Friday! This dude’s real name is Michael Ebenezer Kwadjo Omari Owuo Jr., and he is a British rapper, singer and songwriter who gained attention on the U.K. underground music scene through his Wicked Skengman series of freestyles over classic grime beats. Like everything else that’s grime-based, it was cool stuff, but what about this new record? I don’t know, let’s find out, shall we? The teaser single, “Hide & Seek,” is high-class stuff, kind of a cross between Seal and Drake, but with a humble, eminently British attitude that doesn’t rely on controversy or dissing someone else. Yes, folks, in other words it is doomed to eventual failure just because it’s good and decent and nice, you know how this goes by now.

• Marcus Paquin is a record producer/writer/multi-instrumentalist who has worked with Arcade Fire, The National, Stars, Raine Maida, Local Natives, basically any Canadian indie band that’s gotten on my nerves over the last 12 years. His new album is Our Love, and the single, “The Way Forward,” is likable enough, fronting your basic Bon Iver/Sigur Ros chill-tech-indie contrivances, but it’s OK. His vocals have a weird but not entirely unapproachable effect added in order to make them more awkward and anti-edgy, the sort of angle we’ve heard a million times by now, but there is indeed some epic-ness once you get to the chorus, where the vocal sound remains weird but actually works within the scheme of it. I dunno, an overproduced Gorillaz ballad would be similar; it’s not wildly addictive but a lot better than the recent things I’ve heard in this genre.

• Wait, ermagerd, looky over there, my little rascals, it’s an album on which we can just go to town and laugh our little tuchuses off, and bonus, it’s a holiday album! It’s 80-year-old pop-crooner Cliff Richard, who was once the most dreaded name in “rock ’n’ roll,” basically about as counter-culture as Lawrence Welk! Christmas With Cliff, his first holiday-themed album in 19 years, features 10 covers done by the only artist in the world to achieve Top 5 albums in eight consecutive decades! Includes classics like “Sleigh Ride,” “Joy to the World,” “Blue Christmas” and whatnot, as well as three original songs.

• We’ll finish this off and get to some serious drinking by talking about Glasgow-based goth-glam sextet Walt Disco and their new EP, Always Sickening, won’t that be terrific? There’s a cover of Stephanie Mills’ 1980 disco hit “Never Knew Love Like This Before,” but it’s super slow and weird, you’ll probably be like “I hate this,” just letting you know ahead of time. And there we are.

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).

Enuff Z’Nuff, Finer Than Sin (Frontiers Music)

Early holiday present for me; new albums from long-irrelevant (at least in the U.S.) hair-metal bands basically write their own reviews after about a minute, unless there’s some smidgeon of off-kilterness present (there never is). This is another band I really never listened to, mostly because of their stupid name, but trust me, I’ve listened to plenty of hair-metal bands (and was in one back when I was a simply irresistible babe), so when I say really dumb band names said all there was to say about a hair-metal album, it’s true. These guys formed in Chicago and were known for their obligato power ballad “Fly High Michelle” (um, wow, this isn’t all that bad) and an obligato dance-metal tune, “New Thing” (well well, ditto). So yeah, singer Donnie Vie is gone; bassist Chip Z’Nuff runs the show now, “Intoxicated” is the obligato power ballad, “Catastrophe” is a decent midtempo rocker. It’s not bad, really, this stuff. The takeaway for me is that these guys did have the potential to become a hair metal Cheap Trick. Too bad about that dumb name. A+

Long Mama, Poor Pretender (self-released)

This Milwaukee-based band has gathered a relatable-enough bunch of tunes together for their debut album, its inherent humanness coming courtesy of singer Kat Wodtke, whose voice traverses the wintry border that separates Dolores O’Riordan from Natalie Merchant (which means it’s pretty thin, which I’d never noticed before). Standard guitar-bass-drums setup here, one that you’d picture floating the background to a k.d. laing record or something like that, but there’s also engineer Erik Koskinen, who added lap steel, electric guitar, and Wurlitzer. Don’t let the Wilco comparisons lead you into this if you happen to see any; it’s really pretty basic Americana-indie-pop, very light on the indie, although there are some punk-ish passages here and there, which is as advertised. The tunes benefit quite a bit from Koskinen’s seemingly ubiquitous steel guitar, leaving me wondering why he’s not a permanent member. Picture a country-fied 10,000 Maniacs and you’d be about there. A+

Playlist

• Uh-oh, look what’s coming, it’s Friday, Nov. 18, only like 10 seconds left for your holiday shopping before all the corporate music-streaming platforms and rock stars starve and become skeletons, all because you had to be all like, “It’s too commercial, what care I if the dude from Coldplay can’t buy his weekly Maserati?” Always thinking of yourself, do you know it’s Christmas, don’t be such a Grinch, holy crow! I mean it’s definitely a festive day for me, because look over there, it’s one of the favorite punching bags of rock ’n’ roll critics all over the world! Yes, I’m talking about none other than Canadian false-metal muttonheads Nickelback, with an album titled Get Rollin’, how could they have thought of such an original thing? Ha ha, you want to know something awesome, upjoke.com has a collection of the best Nickelback jokes, ready? “Fire alarms should just play Nickelback: Anyone who stays in the building deserves what they get,” and, “I can’t get over how cruel some people are. I had some Nickelback tickets on the passenger seat of my car, and I popped into the shop for just five minutes. When I came back, someone had smashed the window and left two more.” Now that is some good old down-home hilarity, isn’t it folks, but uh-oh, there are five or six dudes looking at me all mad right now, and they have mullets and knockoff WWE championship wrestling belts, so I reckon I’d better get a move on, huh? OK, moving on, there’s a video here for the new single “These Days,” look at them, the fellas are walking into someone’s garage, and there’s a lava lamp, a random first-generation Atari system, and now they’re playing, and it’s kind of a neo-country half-ballad that’s just lame and emo-y. It’s like they’re trying to be some sort of boy-band for soccer moms? I don’t know. Anyway, the ’Back is back folks, Nickelback, everyone.

• So I saw that Richard Dawson has a new album coming out called The Ruby Cord this Friday, and then I was like, wait, is he even alive anymore or is he hosting some bizarre version of Family Feud in heaven for the entertainment of all the angels and whatever. OK, I found a video trailer for something that will be on this album apparently, something called “The Hermit,” which is billed as “the trailer for the film,” which means that there will be a movie featuring this dude I guess — Wait a freakin’ minute homies, that isn’t Richard Dawson, it looks more like Ricky Gervais, help me, Hippo readers, I don’t know what I’m even looking at. He’s sleeping in some bed, and the music is sort of like an unplugged Red Hot Chili Peppers B-side but there’s no singing and — wait, some YouTube review says that the opening track for this album is 41 minutes long, I’ll be taking a hard pass there, like, if it’s all like this boring snippet I’d rather eat a bowl of crickets. Another few commentators on YouTube are warning that this dude is into some sort of weird evolutionary theory and he’s sort of insane. Let’s leave this all right here and get out while we can, whattaya say?

• Boy howdy, if there’s anyone who knows how to put out two or three albums every year just to get on my nerves with their bad singing and prehistoric hippie iconography, it’s Neil Young & Crazy Horse, and it’s time for a new one, World Record! Short and sweet: New single “Break The Chain” is like a basic Tom Petty song except the guitar has heavy distortion on it, and, you know, that voice. Aaaand we’re moving.

• Finally, let’s listen to “Denimclad Baboons,” from Röyksopp’s new album, Profound Mysteries III. It’s (spoiler alert) krautrock with some mid-Aughts-house and ’70s-radio-pop vibe. I pronounce it “Fine, whatever.”

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).

Hellsingland Underground, Endless Optimism (Sound Pollution Records)

So the deal with this album is it’s the latest from a bunch of old Swedish rock ’n’ roll guys who don’t care if you make fun of them for being old. They’ve done a ton of albums and have finally gotten tired of loud guitars, so they “decided to add more piano, synthesizers and atmosphere instead.” Admirable, isn’t it? And they wrote their press blurb sheet themselves, which is cool. Like, after a lot of blah blah blah, it says here, “We also fired our drummer Patrik Jansson, but found a new one in Johan Gröndal. He is fantastic.” So, yeah, I like these guys personally, and they admit to hating Mötley Crue, which means they’re normal, but is the music any good? Actually yes, yes it is, especially if you’re into Starz, Bowie, things like that, arena-rock tempered with honky tonk and such. They have my full blessings. A

Spell, Tragic Magic (Sound Pollution Records)

The core of this Vancouver, Canada-based throwback-prog-metal act is just two guys, guitarist Cam Mesmer and drummer Al Lester, although they’re supported here by an array of temps who should probably go permanent if they want this to be a serious project, just my two cents. Influenced by such bands as Pink Floyd, Black Sabbath, Blue Oyster Cult, Rush and (purportedly) old-school Mercyful Fate, which is slightly hard to pinpoint here, but Triumph and Rush-style stuff isn’t. Some pretty different riffing here, odd time signatures, really good engineering values and all that; in fact this might have made something of a splash back in the days when a slightly occult-ish vibe was desirable. But it does get a little hokey when they’re phoning in some obvious filler (“Ultraviolet” for example, despite its being something of an apparent push track). But anyway, there you are, something that blows away bands like The Darkness without being too obvious about it. A

Playlist

• Ho ho ho, kiddies, there’s nothing like a little early holiday cheer, which will (hopefully) be provided this week by a bunch of new albums that are officially due out on Friday, Nov. 11! The biggest news this week is something for our mainstream rock fans out there, a new album from living fossil man Bruce Springsteen, called Only The Strong Survive! Here’s a fun fact: Did you know that Bruuuce’s guitarist Steven Van Zandt (also known as Little Steven or Miami Steve or That No-Neck Dude From The Sopranos) is from Winthrop, Massachusetts? See, you learn something new every week just by checking in here! Ack, ack, whatever, furball, here we go, another full length album of rock ’n’ roll from Bruuuce and his boyeez, I can’t wait to get disappointed by the latest rock music single from this working-class hero dude who could buy a few Hilton hotels out of the loose change in his couch, let’s go see what the hubbub is all about this time (which will hopefully be better than last time, lol, remember how much people hated that last album?). But wait a minute, folks, this first single, “Do I Love You,” is pretty cool overall, especially if you’re old and often enjoy 1960s girl groups like the Supremes. Ha ha, look at Bruuuce, getting’ down with the rock and soul, just cold partying while three sets of Josie And The Pussycats dancers rock out and dance to the brass and xylophone. I’m totally inspired, I have to admit, Bruuuce has finally given up the whole “political rock” nonsense, put down his guitar and accepted his role as a really white version of James Brown and plus girl dancers! Buy buy buy!

• Gold Panda is the stage name of English electronic record producer and songwriter Derwin Schlecker, who loves making weird electro music in genres that have short or non-existent shelf-lives, like “post dubstep” and “micro-house,” don’t you love it when techno dudes just make up a genre that might loosely describe their beats, which usually just come from random loops that came out of their playing with their ProTools or whatever for 10 seconds? But wait a minute, hold up homies, forget everything I just said because I’m listening to “The Corner” from the new Gold Panda album The Work, and it’s pretty usable and kind of neat or groovy or whatever they say nowadays. The beat is a trippy ’70s sample, sounds like, and the dude’s voice is a dead ringer for the singer from Pet Shop Boys.

• British singer Louis Tomlinson originally rose to fame as a member of the English-Irish boy band One Direction. Faith In the Future is his new album; “Bigger Than Me” is its tire-kicker single, basically Hoobastank without any training wheels (or originality for that matter, but it’s OK).

• We’ll end with certified weird person Jimmy Edgar, a conceptual artist and sound designer from Detroit, Michigan. This dude is influenced by minimalism, Yves Klein and Immaterialism, the doctrine that material things do not exist. Would that that were actually correct and this guy’s new album, Liquids Heaven, weren’t staring me in the face right now, but here it is, so let’s get this over with. Right, right, so the first “single” is “Slip n Slide,” a tattered electro mess with a lot of wub-wub vibe. Starts out kind of dumb but then becomes workable enough. If you like weird cyborg-pop patter this would be the place.

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).