Category: Albums

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

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

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

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

Playlist

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

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

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

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

If you’re in a local band, now’s a great time to let me know about your EP, your single, whatever’s on your mind. Let me know how you’re holding yourself together without being able to play shows or jam with your homies. Send a recipe for keema matar. Message me on Twitter (@esaeger) or Facebook (eric.saeger.9).

Winery Dogs, III (Three Dog Music)

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

The Bombadils, Dear Friend (Epitaph Records)

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

Playlist

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

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

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

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

If you’re in a local band, now’s a great time to let me know about your EP, your single, whatever’s on your mind. Let me know how you’re holding yourself together without being able to play shows or jam with your homies. Send a recipe for keema matar. Message me on Twitter (@esaeger) or Facebook (eric.saeger.9).

Justin Courtney Pierre, Permanent Midnight (Epitaph Records)

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

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

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

Playlist

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

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

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

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

If you’re in a local band, now’s a great time to let me know about your EP, your single, whatever’s on your mind. Let me know how you’re holding yourself together without being able to play shows or jam with your homies. Send a recipe for keema matar. Message me on Twitter (@esaeger) or Facebook (eric.saeger.9).

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

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

Nyte Skye, Vanishing (Sonic Ritual records)

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

Playlist

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

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

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

If you’re in a local band, now’s a great time to let me know about your EP, your single, whatever’s on your mind. Let me know how you’re holding yourself together without being able to play shows or jam with your homies. Send a recipe for keema matar. Message me on Twitter (@esaeger) or Facebook (eric.saeger.9).

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).