Category: Albums

J. Michael Graham, Stuck (self-released)

Debut six-song record from this Manchester, N.H., native, who’s nowadays running his operation out of Rhode Island. He’s worked his way up in the world, having opened up for basically anyone who’ll have him, from James Montgomery to The Samples to, um, waitwhat, the Dresden Dolls. What’s going on here is a mostly unplugged Dylan-meets-Tom Petty entry. The record’s release party was set for Feb. 7 at Chantilly’s Restaurant in Hooksett. B

—Eric W. Saeger

Niambi, Taboo (Easier Said Records)

Debut solo EP for this Washington, D.C.,-born artist, who, after establishing herself as one-half of the neo-soul/hip-hop duo OSHUN now operates out of Puerto Rico. I really have no complaints regarding this record aside from its length; hopefully there’ll be a lot more of her to hear soon. On first listen I’d attest that this stuff is state-of-the-art trip-hop, beginning with “Soccer Mom,” whose subliminally buzzy busy-signal-ish sample fits perfectly with this lady’s stoned-out-of-her-gourd-style flow; it’s underground to a fault but simultaneously non-threatening, given its sexually ambivalent attitude (Billie Eilish could learn some things from this girl, take that however you wish). “No Budget” is a page right out of Massive Attack’s Heligoland-era schematic, with a lazy, tick-tocking drum line reminiscent of “Teardrop” (the theme to the old House TV series if you’re unfamiliar). “Run It” is the record’s final entry, the closest thing to a trap joint in the set but undeniably soulful. Great things ahead for this lady, no doubt. A+ —Eric W. Saeger

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• Before we get into the new releases streeting this Friday, Jan. 24, I’d like everyone in the class to please pick up your copy of the Dec. 26, 2024, Hippo and take a look at the ribbing I gave former British boyband-numbskull Robbie Williams for the soundtrack for his album Better Man (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack), based on his biopic of the same name. You see, Variety just announced the numbers for the independently made Paramount-released movie (please ask your kids to leave the room, folks, this is for mature audiences only). Ahem, it was a record-breaker in the States, all right: It appeared in 1,291 movie theaters and made $1 million, which would be great if it had cost $5 to make, but guess what: it cost $110 million to make! Even overseas, where people actually even know who that dude is, it’s only made $4.9 million! Now, it might have done better if Williams hadn’t been portrayed by a digitally animated chimpanzee in the film, but you know what, I’m glad he was, because now maybe we have a new Rocky Horror Picture Show to mock and deride and laugh at. I’ll tell you, I don’t mind being right all the time, but this was like winning the Lotto!• Cool beans, we’re almost done with stupid wasteful frozen January already, let’s go! Friday the 31st will see a bunch of new albums, which we must talk about now, so let’s do that, please let’s! Why don’t we kick off the week with The Purple Bird from Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, real name Joseph Oldham, known for his “do-it-yourself punk aesthetic and blunt honesty.” Music critics who are just trying to get their columns finished for the week usually associate his music with Americana, folk, roots, country, punk and indie rock, but this new album’s leadoff single, “London May,” is Guster-like and formulaic in a sonic sense: The piano-bonking chorus is compelling enough to prevent it from being written off as unlistenable, much as it deserves it. “Downstream” is more interesting, possessed of a bluegrass patina that mixes dobro and Irish ren-faire folk; it’d be pretty great if not for the guest vocal from overrated country singer John Anderson. Oldham is trying too hard to be eclectic there, but Flight of the Conchords fans will probably like it for its faux-sincerity and world music feel.

• L.S. Dunes is something of an Aughts supergroup, fronted by Circa Survive/Saosin vocalist Anthony Green, who’s backed by My Chemical Romance guitarist Frank Iero, Coheed and Cambria guitarist Travis Stever, bassist Tim Payne and drummer Tucker Rule from the band Thursday. Their new LP Violet is heading to your Soundclouds as we speak; it’s the follow-up to their 2022 debut Past Lives, which sputtered at No. 174 in the U.S. charts despite its spazzy screamo/extreme-metal-tinged single “Permanent Rebellion,” which is nevertheless a pretty cool tune if you give it a chance (since I know you won’t bother, I’d urge you instead to go listen to the new album’s title track, which is in the same vein but slightly more accessible, sort of like Fall Out Boy with a jet pack strapped to its butt). These guys are definitely on to something, but their survival depends on suburban American youth’s capacity for taking scream seriously in [current_year]. (One annoying side effect of my looking into this band on YouTube was that I’ve ever since been spammed by ads for the Coheed and Cambria/Taking Back Sunday tour, which, by the way, will be coming to Boston’s MGM Music Hall on August 30; I will not be attending that one, for the record.)

• Manic Street Preachers is a Welsh alt-rock band that’s done some interesting stuff over the near 40 years of their existence, including their older hit “La Tristesse Durera (Scream to a Sigh),” which krazy-glued grunge-rock to Jet in a long-overdue experiment (I liked that one a lot more than their more popular hit “Motorcycle Emptiness,” but your mileage may vary). They’re officially old nowadays, so their forthcoming LP Critical Thinking includes a transparent attempt to dent the AOR charts, specifically with the single “Hiding in Plain Sight,” a sleepy mid-tempo rocker that might have been interesting in 1967 but won’t do much for anyone under 40 today, I assure you. That’s not to say that traditional rock ’n’ roll is dead, but bands like this should really Google the word “electronic sampling” for all our sakes.

• We’ll end this week’s nonsense with Maribou State, an English electronic music duo famous for remixing stuff from Alpines, Lana Del Rey and anyone else who’ll put up with them. Their new full-length Hallucinating Love features the single “Bloom,” a ’60s-soul-tinted that’s got a lot to offer in the electro-experimentation department. They’ll be at the Royale in Boston on May 8. —Eric W. Saeger

Featured Photo: J. Michael Graham, Stuck (self-released) and Niambi, Taboo (Easier Said Records)

Löanshark, No Sins To Confess (Reigning Phoenix Music)

I swear I haven’t developed some weird fetish for foreign heavy metal bands, cross my heart; you may have noticed that I pick a random metal band out of my overstuffed emailbox every few weeks, and it just so happened that this week it’s yet another entry from Barcelona, Spain. I can make this short and sweet: If you ever wanted to hear what it would sound like if Scorpions and Alcatrazz had a baby, it’s this. The old-school hamster-wheel gets spinning really fast from the jump, with opener (no, I’m not making this up) “Electric Shockin’ Waves,” a headbanger that doesn’t break any new ground at all but nevertheless is a fine attempt; the singer sounds like a cross between Klaus Meine and Dio, which is about as generic as things could get. In case you’re not sure what this is about, there’s a cover version of NWOBHM cult band Marseille’s“Open Fire” that sounds a lot like a forgotten hit from Europe, come to think of it. It’s OK! A —Eric W. Saeger

The Vapors, Wasp In A Jar (Vapors Own Records)

Holy crow, stop the presses, this isn’t stupid at all! I know it must be a shock to Gen-Xers (how’s the imminent approach of your 60s feeling, kiddies?) to find that this U.K. New Wave band is still at it; you oldbies remember their big (OK, only) hit “Turning Japanese” from wayyy back in the day, but fact is, this isn’t the only album they’ve released over the decades. Anyway, what was I saying — oh yes, it’s not stupid, or at least it doesn’t start out that way, with the hardcore thrasher “Hit The Ground Run.” That one’s followed by “The Human Race,” a spazz-fest that’s their newest “Son Of Turning Japanese” entry, replete with a geeky, mildly catchy chorus. Later comes the obligato joke song, “Miss You Girl,” with a challenging but stupid bass line and purposely sloppy feedback-washed guitar line (literally every New Wave band wrote one of these during the Reagan years). Whatever, it’s a fun record, God bless ’em. A —Eric W. Saeger

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• Before we get into the new releases streeting this Friday, Jan. 24, I’d like everyone in the class to please pick up your copy of the Dec. 26, 2024, Hippo and take a look at the ribbing I gave former British boyband-numbskull Robbie Williams for the soundtrack for his album Better Man (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack), based on his biopic of the same name. You see, Variety just announced the numbers for the independently made Paramount-released movie (please ask your kids to leave the room, folks, this is for mature audiences only). Ahem, it was a record-breaker in the States, all right: It appeared in 1,291 movie theaters and made $1 million, which would be great if it had cost $5 to make, but guess what: it cost $110 million to make! Even overseas, where people actually even know who that dude is, it’s only made $4.9 million! Now, it might have done better if Williams hadn’t been portrayed by a digitally animated chimpanzee in the film, but you know what, I’m glad he was, because now maybe we have a new Rocky Horror Picture Show to mock and deride and laugh at. I’ll tell you, I don’t mind being right all the time, but this was like winning the Lotto!

• If you’re old, you had a small psychological meltdown in 2021 when you were just trying to mind your own business and eat your Fiery Doritos and watch the Super Bowl halftime show and suddenly, instead of Tom Petty or Aerosmith actually playing the hits you used to listen to at keggers in 1986, there was some dude running around in a funhouse mirror-hall, lip-synching some Raffi-esque nursery rhymes, and you were like “How did this all happen?” It’s hard to say, but that was The Weeknd, and he has a new album coming out this Friday, titled Hurry Up Tomorrow, which took forever to roll out even after being postponed, and is said to be “all over the place” genre-wise. “The Crowd” is one of the new songs, an Auto-Tune fest that’s slow and foggy. “Timeless,” with a feature from Playboi Carti, is a cleverly syncopated chillout that fares a lot better. Late breaking: Oh for cripe’s sake, this guy moved the release date again, back a week to Jan. 31, for anyone who takes this ridiculousness seriously.

• Southern-roots-rock band Larkin Poe is often said to be a female version of Allman Brothers, mostly by journalists who don’t know what they’re doing. The band’s new album, Bloom, is led up by the single “Little Bit,” an unexciting slow-rock ballad that’s like Melissa Etheridge trying to be relevant to both the Billboard chart guys and the Zoomer demographic, which is obviously not something anyone should ever try.

• Lol we certainly are on a roll this week, folks, what could possibly be next, I ask you seriously, what on earth will be the next thing I’ll have to — oh look, it’s Scottish post-rock whatevers Mogwai, a band that’s famous for the horribly horrible Pavement-meets-Spacemen 3 single “Take Me Somewhere Nice,” deliver me from nonsense somebody please. Their new album is titled The Bad Fire and features a song called “Lion Rumpus,” a shoegaze-ish thingamajig with lots of guitar distortion that is, as always, its only saving grace, although the fact that there’s no singing on it is an added bonus. The video features the “lads” walking their dogs around Glasgow and asking people if they’ve even heard of Mogwai; most of them say “no” of course.

• Finally we have London-based indie-Bandcamper Anna B Savage, attempting to salvage something positive from this absolutely dreadful week of new releases, with her new one, You and I Are Earth. The single, “Agnes ft. Anna Mieke,” is basically an overacted nick of Tori Amos for Zoomers who’d secretly rather be listening to something decent (they all are); too bad about that. —Eric W. Saeger

Featured Photo: Löanshark, No Sins To Confess (Reigning Phoenix Music) and The Vapors, Wasp In A Jar (Vapors Own Records)

Bumblefoot, Bumblefoot … Returns! (Bumblefoot Music)

Ron ‘Bumblefoot’ Thal is a guitarist, producer, composer and educator whose career spans more than 30 years, highlighted by collaborations with Guns N’ Roses, Asia, Sons of Apollo, and Whom Gods Destroy. In other words, you’ve assuredly heard his work but had no idea who he is. It’s been 30 years since his debut solo album Adventures Of Bumblefoot, but — and I don’t think I’ve ever used this hackneyed phrase in all my years of music-journo-ing, correct me if I’m wrong but I’m not — this was worth the wait, but only if you’re a Guitar Player-reading nerd who wants to expand your horizons past basic shredding methods. Guests on this one include Queen’s Brian May (turning in a rather pedestrian blooz-rawk performance in “Once In Forever”), Steve Vai (the far more interesting stomp-thrasher “Monstruoso”), and Guthrie Govan (the epic-metal-washed “Anveshana”), but it’s Thal’s own otherworldly experimentation on numbers like “Simon In Space” that makes this a can’t-miss for you wonks out there (don’t try this at home). A+ —Eric W. Saeger

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A seriously abridged compendium of recent and future CD releases

• Wow, folks, it’s already Jan. 17, we’ll be past this frost-Viking weather before you know it and I’ll be in my glory again, eating overpriced clams and fish on York Beach while annoying tourists from Methuen and Allston intentionally park themselves in front of me, coagulating in beach umbrella encampments (they get sunburned anyway, every single time), just to ruin my view of Maine’s peaceful waves and yelling seagulls! If there’s a worse buzzkill than that it hasn’t been invented yet, but I’d take it over the alternative, all the silly windy Day After Tomorrow-level mega-blasts of insta-freeze North Pole nonsense that’s settled in lately, any day! Whatever, shut up, we’re supposed to be talking about the new albums coming out on the 17th, like Humanhood, the new LP from Canadian revolving-door folkie band The Weather Station, can you hardly wait! This lady-fronted outfit has won and been nominated for several Canadian music awards, which is the musical equivalent of winning the Wiffle Ball World Series, but you know what, I’ll listen to something from this new album anyway, in order to provide my frantic fans with the latest developments in obscure world music happenings! Hold it, the new single, “Neon Lights,” is very good, to be honest, sort of a cross between Loreena McKennitt and Arcade Fire, aren’t you tired of Canadian bands making very listenable music when we can’t, so annoying! There’s an urgent street-smart vibe to it, and bandleader/singer Tamara Lindeman puts her Canadian-music-award-nominated songwriting talents to the test, mopping the floor with the likes of Natalie Merchant. You’ll like this tune if you’re not in the habit of being intentionally obtuse.

• World-, um, I mean Europe-renowned singer-songwriter David Gray has won many awards that you didn’t even know existed, but in his defense, he was also nominated for a few Grammys, including Best New Artist in 2002, obviously because the heavily medicated Grammy Award people had to fill up the nom list with nine sacrificial lambs to lose to Alicia Keys that year (private to a constant reader: naturally they didn’t take Linkin Park seriously back then, and I still don’t)! Who cares and whatnot, Dear Life is this British bloke’s new album, eh wot, and it features the single “Plus and Minus,” a duet with Talia Rae. It is a gentle AOR tune for soccer parents, comprising a chill vibe and debatable amount of mild listenability. At least it’s not annoying, eh wot bob’s your uncle?

• Lastly on the listly, it’s the second posthumous album from Pittsburg jazz-rap/alt-hip-hopper Mac Miller, aka Delusional Thomas. Balloonerism is the new album; it’s as East Coast hip-hop as you could ever want, whatever that means to you. His family handled this release, which is very important to the handful of people who care about stuff like that. —Eric W. Saeger

Featured Photo: Bumblefoot, Bumblefoot … Returns (Bumblefoot Music)

B.F. Raid, Raided Again (self-released)

For years now I’ve tweeted invitations for bands to hit me up and give them a review in this space, but this is only the third or so occasion in which a non-hopeless band jumped into my Twitter messages (we’re never going to call it “X,” not ever). This punk-metal (in the most pragmatic sense) outfit, more formally known as Boston’s Final Raid, is of course from Boston, well, Malden to be precise, and they’ve been around since 1981, per the loquacious one-sheet bio I’m reading. I’m fine with this stuff, to be honest; their approach is decidedly NWOBHM (that is to say, these fellers probably grew up listening to a lot of Maiden and Prieeest, but then again, who didn’t), and when you take into account that the recording is low-but-not-too-low-budget, there’s a strong hint of early Riot to it. This full-length opens with “Angel,” a shred-fest with some fine Dio-esque singing and all that sort of thing, then moves into “Becky,” which tosses a little Jello Biafra spice into a Stiv Bators fricassee. These guys could certainly pitch this record to a few overseas metal labels for foreign distribution, if they don’t really care about getting paid of course. A —Eric W. Saeger

Lucy Kalantari and the Jazz Cats, Creciendo (self-released)

The Grammys will be awarded on Feb. 2, and you don’t need to read the list to assume the Record Of The Year contenders: Taylor Swift, Charlie XCX and so forth. In the meantime, I’m having to purge my emailbox on an hourly basis from all the spam reminding me about niche Grammy nominees, including children’s music albums, which is what this is. The record’s title translates to “growing up” in Spanish, a language Kalantari has wanted to deploy on an LP for many years now, and now here it is. She’s well-known in the space, having contributed to the Dora series on Paramount+ as well as having her tunes appear on PBS Kids Jam, Universal Kids, and SiriusXM Kids Place Live. Given her goofy attitude and flair for all types of world music, the default adjective we music journos are using is “charming,” and we don’t mean it in a Barney or Raffi sense; it’s not mindless, repetitive cutesiness, more a thing that will (hopefully) lead growing brains to become interested in more intelligent tuneage. For example a brash Yiddish folk segue pops up during a Cab Calloway-style stomp-jazz number (“El Sonido de los Vientos”). Fun, brainy stuff. A —Eric W. Saeger

_PLAYLIST

A seriously abridged compendium of recent and future CD releases

• Jan. 10 is the next Friday when new albums will be released, or “unleashed,” like they used to say in Hit Parader magazine, when it was common practice among rock journalists to insinuate that rock music albums could literally beat people up or claw at them like wild tigers (in case you’re not sure, no, they can’t). And I am ready for some unleashing after several weeks of nothing but Edward Skeletrix wannabes releasing joke albums for review, I’ll tell you that much, but oops, look at the time, it’s time to mention how little I care about The Beatles again, because look who’s releasing a new album, none other than the world’s second-least-interesting drummer after Charlie Watts. Yes, we’re talking about Ringo Starr, who replaced Pete Best 150 years ago as the band’s drummer in 1962! Boy, if I had the time-traveling DeLorean car from Back To The Future, that’s the year I’d program into it, so that I could buy 500 copies of Amazing Fantasy #15, the first comic book in which Spider-Man appeared; one copy sold for 3.6 million buckaroos in 2021, did you know? But the gods don’t want me to have any fun, so instead of sitting around trying to spend 1.8 billion buckaroos, I have to talk to you people about Ringo Starr, let’s get into it. Ringo was the Peter Tork “comedy relief” person of The Beatles, singing such unlistenable joke songs as “Octopus’s Garden” and “Yellow Submarine” before he became the “How did someone who looks like that marry Barbara Bach” guy. He was lucky to get there at all, because The Beatles’ manager distrusted Ringo’s ability so much that he hired a session hack to play drums on the first Beatles single, “Love Me Do.” Another thing I thought was — oh, look at you guys, scrolling through your AOL or whatever, I feel like Carmela Soprano trying to make idle conversation about Beatles drummers with her grumpy son Anthony Jr. over dinner, fine, let’s just forget it, I don’t care about Beatles trivia either and never did. So OK, blah blah blah, since the breakup of The Beatles, Ringo has busied himself supporting things like Brexit and generally being funny looking and worthless, all while not having a single in the U.S. charts since 1981’s “Wrack My Brain,” remember that one, neither do I. Nowadays he indulges an obsession he shares with most Britons, namely cowboy hats and country-and-western songs! This historic fraud’s new album, Look Up, kicks off with a duet with perennial second-banana Alison Krauss, titled “Thankful,” in which the Ring Man allows some sleepy, pleasant-enough dojo-washed bluegrass to play for a few bars before he barges in with his Ringo-voice to sing about (spoiler) romantic regret or something, and as always, instead of sounding like a singer, he comes off like some stuffy British bloke trying to figure out how to order a cheeseburger. Next please.

• Oh cripes, Franz Ferdinand, also known as “Not The Strokes By Any Measure,” has a new one coming your way, The Human Fear! As always, the song “Audacious” is basically Gang Of Four but boring, you might like it; I hope not.

• If you like Amyl And The Sniffers, and who doesn’t, you might very well like British girl-noise band Lambrini Girls, whose 2023 song “Boys In The Band” addressed sexual abuse culture in the music industry, which, as we all learned last year, is quite widespread. Their new LP is Who Let The Dogs Out, featuring “Love,” a speed-noise joint that makes Foo Fighters look like the Brady Bunch Band (no, I know).

• Lastly it’s South African poet-singer Moonchild Sanelly with her third LP, Full Moon! The single, “Do My Dance,” is awesome, like Blackpink or whatnot futzing around with dubstep. More ladies should be doing this kind of thing, really. —Eric W. Saeger

Featured Photo: B.F. Raid, Raided Again (self-released), Lucy Kalantari and the Jazz Cats, Creciendo (self-released)

Bear McCreary/Sparks & Shadows, God of War Ragnarök: Valhalla (video game soundtrack) (Sony Records)

One thing that’s been hard for non-young people to even wrap our heads around is the endless seriousness with which millennials and Zoomers take video games and their associated peripheral entertainment products. I mean, I (way) overdid it with Descent and Doom and all those games back in the day, but there’s no way I ever would have gone to a Covid-soaked arena to see a concert where the headliner was a DJ spinning tunes from a video game. But it’s a different world now, folks; the kids literally do that, which strikes me as absolutely dystopian, but it is what it is. In this case, we have Bear McCrearey joining forces with a couple of other soundtrackers to jack the bombast straight to Mars for this action-adventure fantasy game’s tuneage, and it’s what you’d expect, lots of Thor-themed choruses, loud epicness, etc. Mind you, this came out last year, but my email is getting pestered about the fact that this LP, “the last musical chapter for Kratos in the Norse saga,” is up for a Grammy in the category of Best Soundtrack for Video Games and Other Interactive Media. Do with this nonsensical information what you will; all it does for me is remind me that Richard Wagner was a pretty nifty composer, and that Bear McCreary ripped off Bon Jovi’s “Wanted Dead Or Alive” when he wrote the main theme to Black Sails. B —Eric W. Saeger

Front Line Assembly, Mechviruses (self-released)

Yep, I’m still an overgrown goth kid, so I do keep track of spooky-ghoulie soundsystems like this Canadian outfit, the brainchild of former Skinny Puppy crony Bill Leeb and his on-again off-again sidekick Rhys Fulber, who is definitely the weirdest guy I’ve ever interviewed, not to detract from his genius. Gothies should know what to expect from this LP for the most part, a lot of Rammstein-lite krautrock-based stomping and some soaring trance-metal. Toward the latter, they still haven’t topped “The Storm” as their best tune (it’s a gasser, folks), but they made a real effort this time, collaborating with such up-and-comers as Encephalon, s:cage, Seeming and a bunch of others to freshen the recipe, and the results are pretty freaking awesome, reminiscent of Gary Numan. The title track chugs along as politely-urgently as anything you’ve heard from them before, but — and I don’t know if Ultra Sunn’s feature has anything to do with this — there are ’80s-pop synth layers that make it really interesting. Oh, and then “Bootblacks” kicks in with some Cure-ish shoegaze guitars. This is exactly what I would have done if I ran this band; these guys are still the kings of this space, no question. A+ —Eric W. Saeger

_PLAYLIST

A seriously abridged compendium of recent and future CD releases

• At this writing, Genius.com tells me there are only two new music albums scheduled for traditional Friday release this week, on Dec. 27, two days after the big pagan holiday, whatever it’s called. No, I’m kidding, I know it’s called “Christmas,” but according to a popular meme that made the rounds this holiday season, Christians once actually tried to get rid of Christmas at one time, wouldn’t that have been a bummer? No, seriously, according to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’ website, “In 1659, the Massachusetts Bay Colony enacted a law called Penalty for Keeping Christmas. The notion was that such ‘festivals as were superstitiously kept in other countries’ were a ‘great dishonor of God and offence of others.’ Anyone found celebrating Christmas by failing to work, ‘feasting, or any other way … shall pay for every such offence five shillings [This would be about $48 today].’” The Commonwealth eventually came to realize what a dumb idea that was, and by 1681 all the witch-burning pilgrims could watch the Grinch again, but even today some musical artists couldn’t care less if it was Christmas or National Possum Day or whatever, they insist on putting out albums. For example, there’s Jorge Rivera-Herrans, a mildly popular playwright, composer, lyricist and actor from Dorado, Puerto Rico. His new record, Epic: The Ithaca Saga, is a po-faced concept album that was released on Christmas; it includes a song called “God Games” that’s racked up more than six million views on YouTube. It comprises opera-based techno-driven nonsense that’s actually kind of brilliant in a technical sense, and a lot of people like it, so I suppose there’s a chance he’ll someday become some sort of male version of Enya for Greek mythology wonks. I mean, I fully expect never to hear anything from him again unless I’m at a sci-fi convention or somesuch, but weird things happen all the time.

• Also on Christmas, K-pop band 2NE1 released a 15-track album titled Welcome Back, which commemorates their ongoing (four years and counting) tour of the same name. Their bouncy, brainless Lady Gaga-style stuff borrows from all sorts of international styles and features a lot of sexytime butt-dancing and all the other stuff that’s been portending the collapse of Western civilization since 2005 or so.

• In normal album-release news, this Friday sees the release of the second album from Harshmxjb (real name Harsh Mishra), a musician from New Delhi, India. This feller is a typical underground culture-jammer, a 19-year-old who’s been exploiting the open-door policy of Spotify, Apple Music and all the other music sites, uploading hip-hop tunes like “Alone,” in which he sings off-key, like a brain-damaged Usher, over a melancholy, non-awful piano-driven beat (that song actually got some love on TikTok and YouTube).

• We’ll wrap up the week with an album that’s neither silly, performatively epic nor K-pop, a new one from singer Robbie Williams, whom you know from British boyband Take That, which was originally triangulated by conniving record company lizard-people as the U.K.’s answer to New Kids on the Block. That was a long time ago, of course; Williams has been a solo art-fraud since 1995, not that American audiences have paid much attention to him, but regardless, the new LP is Better Man (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack). Given that the movie is about Williams’ career, he was probably a good choice to soundtrack it; these things aren’t difficult to figure out.

Kristian Montgomery and the Winterkill Band, Prophets of the Apocalypse (self-released)

When last we left Cape Cod-based bandleader Montgomery I was on the verge of anointing him the Tom Petty of New England, but that feels a little inadequate; local achievement is generally regarded by the public as almost meaningless in comparison to national success no matter the level of enthusiasm from hometown wags. I mean, he’s been nominated for some pretty notable awards, including a (nationally renowned) Josie and a Boston Music Award in 2021, which somehow led to his having beef with the committee owing to his disgust for their lack of recognition for blue-collar artists. He’s a rebel, this guy, and has a ton of working-class cred. In this EP he blends Petty with Florida Georgia Line in the timely blue-collar protest song “American Fire” and country-fies early Kings Of Leon in “Leaving Texas.” He’s a legitimate badass, folks; I literally had to troll him into letting me hear this record in advance, a very rare thing with hungry local bands. Please support this man. A+ —Eric W. Saeger

Adam Birnbaum, Preludes (self-released)

This one’s a year old now, but the fellow who’s helping to promote this world-class pianist is trying to break into the upper echelons of the music business, and he’s a nice guy, so here goes. This album spotlights a piano, upright bass and percussion trio taking on a formidable set of Johann Sebastian Bach’s compositions, along the way adding elements of jazz, Latin, swing and straight eighth-note, taking liberties with feel and improvisation. There are YouTube videos of these cool customers going at it, and it’s quite a sight; Matt Clohesy playing his bass after a showy, Jaco Pastorius fashion; percussionist Keita Ogawa looking quite comfortable and Birnbaum appearing as if he’d literally invented the piano he’s playing. “Prelude in Db Major” bops right along most ambitiously, all but stripped of its classical nature; “Prelude in C Major” retains much of the latter but does eventually settle into a light, piano-bar groove. Terrific stuff. A+

_PLAYLIST

A seriously abridged compendium of recent and future CD releases

• At this writing, Genius.com tells me there are only two new music albums scheduled for traditional Friday release this week, on Dec. 27, two days after the big pagan holiday, whatever it’s called. No, I’m kidding, I know it’s called “Christmas,” but according to a popular meme that made the rounds this holiday season, Christians once actually tried to get rid of Christmas at one time, wouldn’t that have been a bummer? No, seriously, according to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’ website, “In 1659, the Massachusetts Bay Colony enacted a law called Penalty for Keeping Christmas. The notion was that such ‘festivals as were superstitiously kept in other countries’ were a ‘great dishonor of God and offence of others.’ Anyone found celebrating Christmas by failing to work, ‘feasting, or any other way … shall pay for every such offence five shillings [This would be about $48 today].’” The Commonwealth eventually came to realize what a dumb idea that was, and by 1681 all the witch-burning pilgrims could watch the Grinch again, but even today some musical artists couldn’t care less if it was Christmas or National Possum Day or whatever, they insist on putting out albums. For example, there’s Jorge Rivera-Herrans, a mildly popular playwright, composer, lyricist and actor from Dorado, Puerto Rico. His new record, Epic: The Ithaca Saga, is a po-faced concept album that was released on Christmas; it includes a song called “God Games” that’s racked up more than six million views on YouTube. It comprises opera-based techno-driven nonsense that’s actually kind of brilliant in a technical sense, and a lot of people like it, so I suppose there’s a chance he’ll someday become some sort of male version of Enya for Greek mythology wonks. I mean, I fully expect never to hear anything from him again unless I’m at a sci-fi convention or somesuch, but weird things happen all the time.

• Also on Christmas, K-pop band 2NE1 released a 15-track album titled Welcome Back, which commemorates their ongoing (four years and counting) tour of the same name. Their bouncy, brainless Lady Gaga-style stuff borrows from all sorts of international styles and features a lot of sexytime butt-dancing and all the other stuff that’s been portending the collapse of Western civilization since 2005 or so.

• In normal album-release news, this Friday sees the release of the second album from Harshmxjb (real name Harsh Mishra), a musician from New Delhi, India. This feller is a typical underground culture-jammer, a 19-year-old who’s been exploiting the open-door policy of Spotify, Apple Music and all the other music sites, uploading hip-hop tunes like “Alone,” in which he sings off-key, like a brain-damaged Usher, over a melancholy, non-awful piano-driven beat (that song actually got some love on TikTok and YouTube).

• We’ll wrap up the week with an album that’s neither silly, performatively epic nor K-pop, a new one from singer Robbie Williams, whom you know from British boyband Take That, which was originally triangulated by conniving record company lizard-people as the U.K.’s answer to New Kids on the Block. That was a long time ago, of course; Williams has been a solo art-fraud since 1995, not that American audiences have paid much attention to him, but regardless, the new LP is Better Man (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack). Given that the movie is about Williams’ career, he was probably a good choice to soundtrack it; these things aren’t difficult to figure out.