Category: Pop

Jens Kuross, Crooked Songs (Woodsist Records)

The first time musician/politician Hayden Pedigo heard this folkie’s music he pronounced it a cross between Arthur Russell and Harry Nilsson, but that was before Kuross, a Los Angeles-to-Idaho refugee, put aside his synthesizer and followed Pedigo’s advice to make this minimalist, ambient half-plugged-guitar record. The short description of this one is Jeff Buckley with Chris Martin’s Marvin The Martian-esque voice, unhurried slices of life that’ll be perfect for sipping scotch in quietude by your end-of-summer campfire. What’s great about this is that Kuross had all but given up on ever making any splash in the music business prior to running into Pedigo; he’d retreated to Boise and become a cabinet maker. Ironically enough, that’s precisely the sort of authenticity any L.A. music scout would max out a few AmExes to find, so one can’t help wishing this guy the best when this record streets at the end of August. I mean, Bonnaroo types who are always bemoaning Buckley’s loss really need to put this on their radar. A+

Gayle Young and Robert Wheeler, From Grimsby To Milan (Farpoint Recordings)

Pardon the setup, there’s some unpacking to do here before we drill too deep into this experimental album. First item to note with regard to this duo is the presence of Robert Wheeler, the great-great-grandnephew of Thomas Alva Edison, as well as a member of 50-year-old Cleveland-based art-punk band Pere Ubu since 1994 (that band has been somewhat obscure through the decades, only charting once with 1989’s “Waiting For Mary,” a Joy Division-meets-Captain Beefheart-sounding tune). Meanwhile, in her spare time, Canadian concert musician Gayle Young builds her own instruments, including the “amaranth,” a complicated-looking stringed instrument that vaguely resembles a bongo drum that’s been sawed in half; that’s the thing she noodles around with here whilst Wheeler makes a bunch of flatulent noises with a vintage ElectroComp 101 (made by EML during the late 1960s). The twosome probably got some therapy out of making this record; most of it is like ASMR for mud-dwelling snapping turtles, as in one can practically smell the skunk cabbage. A curiosity for noise wonks. B

_PLAYLIST

A seriously abridged compendium of recent and future CD releases

• Friday, July 25, will see a jumble of new music releases dumped upon humanity, not that we aren’t still traumatized by the last jumble, you folks had better toughen up, let me see your war face! Now surely all you older Americans reading this remember Madonna, but for those of you who are younger, just think of Lady Gaga wearing stripper outfits from the 1930s, or if you don’t even know who Lady Gaga is because you’re really young, maybe just imagine a cross between a non-funny Chappell Roan and Cardi B. Are you with me so far, good, I’d hoped not, but anyway, in the ’90s, Madonna stopped doing normal 1980s techno-pop songs in order to become a trance-techno diva, which resulted in the album Ray Of Light, cementing her as, you know, the next Cher. Now, if you’ve never heard of Cher, ask your grandmother, because like all boomers, she owned a copy of Cher’s early-1970s vinyl single “Gypsies Tramps And Thieves” and she’ll be glad to explain Cher to all you young 4channers, since I don’t want to. I apologize for that, since I know for a fact that people get a kick out of my reporting on the doings of really super-old pop stars. How do I know that? Because a local-to-Manchester Jehovah’s Witness pastor showed up at my house to give me pamphlets and tell me about the fast-approaching Apocalypse (which, duh, it’s already here isn’t it) but anyway — and this is a true story — he asked me excitedly if I was indeed “that Eric Saeger,” and when I told him I was, he started giggling schoolgirlishly and telling me how much he loved this column because it cracks him up when I make fun of prehistoric arena bands and mummified pop stars who are somehow still around despite spending most of their days bathing in formaldehyde. And so this section of this week’s multiple-award-winning column is dedicated to that pastor, let’s go see what on Earth Madonna is even doing on her brand new album, Veronica Electronica! By the title I assumed it’s got AutoTune on it, but nope, it’s composed of previously unreleased remixes from Ray Of Light, doesn’t that sound unnecessary? I have to pick a tune; how about Johnny Madder’s “Oriental Hindu Mix” of “Shanti/Ashtangi,” since I haven’t been to a yoga class in forever and kind of miss it (I’m lying of course). Yes, it’s even more yogic than the original, but the vibe is ruined; it sounds like there’s a sample of a jaw harp in the beginning. In the trash it goes.

• My new pastor bro will also be delighted to know that famous performing Halloween clown Alice Cooper has a new album coming out this week, The Revenge Of Alice Cooper, I assume this’ll be absolutely dreadful, except maybe during some of the parts where Alice isn’t singing. But wait, this is the first album in 51 years from the original Alice Cooper band (the four who are still alive I mean)! Features the tune “Black Mamba,” wherein Alice does his creepy guy shtick and the band sounds like 1960s-era Traffic with a wah wah pedal. Apocalypse, take me away!

• Chicago-based psychedelic rockers Post Animal’s fourth LP, IRON, includes the tune “What’s A Good Life.” This doesn’t sound psychedelic at all, more like a throwaway demo from José González singing over a 1982 Casio keyboard. Hitting “Delete” now before I forget.

• We’ll wrap up this apocalyptic week in music with underrated folk-rocker Patty Griffin, whom some of you know as “Not Shawn Colvin, The Other One, Whatsername.” Crown Of Roses is her new album; its single is “Back at the Start,” a KT Tunstall-ish number that’s very nice but packs all the excitement of a Home Depot paint-swatch book.

Dawn of Ashes, Infecting the Scars (Metropolis Records)

Back on my goth-rock tip again (for as long as it lasts), bringing you one from a Denmark-by-way-of-Los Angeles-based artist who unironically calls himself Krystof Bathory, a fellow whose wardrobe comes courtesy of VampireFreaks.com and who chooses only the finest gross-out makeup for that fresh-from-The Grudge look. Spooky character, this guy. He was a lot more aggressive in his earlier days (he’s been around since the early Aughts), but he’s mellowed some, I’d say; this LP is quite palatable if you’re into, you know, music as opposed to Hot Topic fashion statements. The best point of reference here would be mid-Aughts-era Wumpscut, and that raspy-growls-and-cheesy-tech sonic verisimilitude is what compels me to recommend this album. There’s some jackboot-stomping stuff on here that’ll please the Rammstein crowd but more than enough dedication to haunting melody that keeps it from being anything close to disposable. It’s for a Halloween-obsessed mindset, then, and does the job nicely. A

Honeymoon Suite, Wake Me Up When The Sun Goes Down (Frontiers Music s.r.l.)

Meanwhile, back at Frontiers Mercy Hospital, where former and would-be arena-rock bands go to receive emergency transfusions of actual record contracts, look who’s getting wheeled in on a gurney, it’s this Canadian hard rock/glam band, established in (good lord guys, look at the time) 1981 and which hasn’t charted in the U.S. since 1988’s “Love Changes Everything.” On this release, the band’s vibe isn’t ’80s hair-metal at all, more like a mutant cellular fusion of Buckcherry and Dashboard Confessional — actually, scratch that, I’ll say it, Weezer. That automatically lends them a nice fat stack of cred points, almost negating the Bon Jovi-meets-Bryan Adams robbery they committed with “Love Changes Everything,” and yes, I’m being serious, they’ve made a real effort to be 2020s- (or 2010s-) (OK, fine, Aughts-) relevant here, and that counts for something, folks, it really does. There’s some shredding for you Flying V disciples out there, and that’s really the only thing that one might say “sounds dated” (funny that, isn’t it). It’s perfectly fine, folks, and if you’re not convinced, “Way Too Fast” sounds quite a bit like Taking Back Sunday covering a Taylor Swift song, I’m not kidding, go listen for yourself. A valiant effort, really. A+

_PLAYLIST

A seriously abridged compendium of recent and future CD releases

• As per tradition, all the “important” new albums are being released this Friday, July 18, which, by the way, is the 12th anniversary of the City of Detroit’s declaring bankruptcy, which is probably prophetic. But what all my older readers want to know is whether or not Chicago-based arena-rock band Styx is promoting a new album, given that they’re playing at the Bank Of NH Pavilion in Gilford this Friday (this time without support from REO Speedwagon, because they’re basically broken up these days, or they might as well be, seeing as how singer Kevin Cronin isn’t speaking to them, probably for good reason). To that I reply with an emphatic “yes”: Their new full-length, Circling From Above, is out this Friday, which, by my calculations, means that the Gilford show is actually a record release party of sorts! Now, I know Styx is sort of a meme band at this point in the eyes of anyone younger than 60, but you should stop it, “The Grand Illusion” was/is a cool song, can’t you just admit it you guys, that’d be great, all you kids should go see this show if you want to be aware of ’70s-era rock music (OK, enough kissing butt so I can mooch free tickets next year, let me go see if this album is any good). Right, so “Circling From Above” opens the album as a two-minute intro thingie; it sounds exactly like something from Close To The Edge-era Yes (I hope there’s at least one person reading this who knows what that even means), and then it goes into “Build And Destroy,” which is even more Yes-ish but also borrows heavily from “Sheep,” Pink Floyd’s only decent song. So, to review, even at the age of 112 or however old those guys are, they’re even better musicians than they were during the 1970s, an admirable thing, which I also mentioned in my review of their previous album. So what’s the upshot, you ask? Well, given that good musicianship doesn’t matter in the Golden Age Of Twerking And Fake Beefs, it doesn’t actually matter all that much, but if you’re a serious musician you might be impressed with some of this stuff; it’s quite decent (you’d be better served buying an old Return To Forever album if you want to hear some serious prog-rock, but you’d be doing so at your own risk, just saying). (Actually, just forget it, don’t.)

• Speaking of music for guitar nerds and other people who can’t maintain normal relationships, blues-rocker Joe Bonamassa is back in the emailboxes of us professional music journalists again, hawking his new LP, Breakthrough! I punched up the YouTube for the title track, and holy cultural appropriation, Batman, this is the most Willie Dixon-sounding tune I’ve heard from a white dude since the last five Willie Dixon-sounding white dudes, like is he this generation’s Ry Cooder maybe? I don’t know, so one of you people can message me the deets if you’d like, given that I don’t care about such things.

• Florida punk band Against Me! has basically been kaput since 2016, but the band’s trans frontperson Laura Jane Grace is still making albums for her wildly devoted LGBTQ+ fan base! Her new one, titled Adventure Club, includes the single “Wearing Black,” a semi-speedy, aggressive tune that combines angular Gang Of Four guitars and Exene-level brattiness. It’s an anthem intended for pride parades, and I’d love to tell you some of the lyrics but I’d get in trouble, so never you mind.

• And finally we have New York City’s We Are Scientists, an indie band that’s never impressed me, but who knows, maybe the 500th time is the charm. Their new LP, Qualifying Miles, features the tune “Please Don’t Say It,” a shapeless meatloaf of goth/pseudo-industrial sentiments that has an emo aftertaste, hard pass on this.

Afterz, The Midnight Cafe (self-released)

Mixed pot of trip-hop artistry here from a London, UK-based duo, professing to be influenced by Massive Attack et al but deeper and more world-music-rooted than that. These guys are inspired by the Alté movement in Nigeria (a fusion of genres that include Afrobeat, hip-hop, R&B, and alternative sounds), as well as the dance music culture of South Africa. They aim to bridge the gap between traditional Afrobeats and amapiano (a South African deep house/jazz-based hybrid) and more experimental-alternative and electronic sounds. This EP is like a collection of dream sequences, borrowing heavily from Tricky’s sounds but with the reverb set to 11; passages come and go, processed through the aural equivalent of a Vaseline-smeared lens. The title track may have the gentlest reggaeton undergirding I’ve ever heard, put it that way, while “Voltaire” comes off like a shape-shifting wave pattern that emulates a giant’s resting lungs. This is some exquisite stuff but could stand a little more layering. A

Black Sabbath, Never Say Die (Warner Bros Records)

Continuing with my inconsistent, totally off-the-cuff series on Classic Rock Albums Zoomers Need To Know, you know how you’ll go on social media and see someone talking about something you sort of like and then find out that the person really hates it? That happens to me every time someone mentions this 1978 album, the last record that featured the original lineup of Sabbath (yes kids, with Ozzy): everyone hates it. Now that the band has just (reportedly, and I don’t believe it for a second) scrapped itself forever, it’s safe to come out of the closet and admit that this one featured a few pretty good songs (the title track, “A Hard Road,” “Swinging The Chain”) and was actually quite a bit better than its 1976 predecessor, the absolutely dreadful Technical Ecstasy. Mind you, defending this LP is no hill I’d ever want to die on; the bad tunes are truly bad (“Johnny Blade,” “Junior’s Eyes,” the soggy “Over To You”), but it’s notable in that it was guitarist/bandleader Tony Iommi’s final desperate effort to keep the band interested in staying together. That was impossible: They’d been ripped off by their manager for years (fun fact: to this day they still get no money from their first five albums, yes kids, including Paranoid) and Ozzy was about done with it, yet Iommi persisted heroically. Obviously he knew the band was over, and it shows; there’s a deathly pall over the record that’s quite sad, but again, some of it is well worth knowing. B-

_PLAYLIST

A seriously abridged compendium of recent and future CD releases

• Ugh, this new-CD-release Friday is July 11, meaning the summer’s already half over. I hope you already visited the Atlantic Ocean (you know, the really waterlogged place that makes up everything to the right of New England), because I haven’t yet, except for a quick fish ’n’ chip basket at Bob’s Clam Hut in York, Maine, where I sat gawking at the muddy estuary next to it, where all the seagulls go to poop and make little seagulls. But be that as it may, it’s time to look at this week’s list of new albums, which I assume is rather long, given that almost no new albums were released last week, and, with the slightest modicum of luck, doesn’t have any holiday albums in it, because come on man, it’s way too early for those, please not yet, I beg of you. OK, no Christmas albums this week, that’s good, now let me see if I’ve even heard of any of these people who’re releasing albums this week (things don’t look promising). I’ll start with English singer Mark Stewart, a pioneer of post-punk and industrial music and a founding member of The Pop Group, whose most renowned song, “We Are All Prostitutes,” wasn’t the slightest bit industrial; more of a ska-punk joint that had a Trent Reznor tint to it. Stewart died in 2023, but as is wont to happen, some old recordings of his have been found and summarily compiled into a new album, The Fateful Symmetry. “Memory Of You” is one of those tunes; in a nutshell it sounds like David Bowie singing with a goth-techno band, which of course means that it’s worthwhile in its way.

• Blub blub blub, nothing else is really jumping out at me, so let’s keep moving and I’ll babble something I hope is informative about No Sign Of Weakness, the new LP from Nigerian dancehall/Afrobeat singer/producer Burna Boy! In 2019, his fourth studio full-length, African Giant, was nominated for a Best World Music Album at the Grammy awards, but what you obviously want to know is whether or not his dancehall stuff is as fun as Mad Cobra or whatnot. It isn’t, but one of the singles, “TaTaTa (feat. Travis Scott)” is pretty authentic. Would I dance to it at a tiki bar? No, I do not do such things.

• Actress/singer Noah Cyrus is the sister of famous bothersome person Miley Cyrus, and toward that I have no comment at this time. Interesting how Wikipedia doesn’t even bother assigning a musical style category to Noah like they do with literally every other singer on Earth, given that anyone could take a wild guess, but let’s look and listen, shall we, actually wait, let’s not, I want to see what I’m about to deal with — OK, Wikipedia categorizes Noah’s 2016 debut single “Make Me (Cry)” as “electro,” which sure narrows it down, doesn’t it folks, do I really have to do this? Ack, I suppose I do, so here’s the skinny: Noah’s new album, I Want My Loved Ones To Go With Me, includes a single, titled “New Country,” and guess what, you’ll never guess, it’s not electro, it’s a country ballad duet with some obscure country singing dude named — let’s see — “Blake Shelton” it looks like, unless there’s a typo. The tune is unplugged Bonnaroo bait, pleasant enough I suppose, but come on, can Blake Shelton ever just get out of our face for five seconds for once, that’d be great.

• We’ll wrap up the week with seven-piece jazz/Afrobeat band Kokoroko and their new one, Tuff Times Never Last! The single, “Sweetie,” is “a salute to West African disco music from the ’80s/’90s,” so yes, it sounds like something Sade would listen to while she’s getting a foot rub. No brains required here, but it’s nice, sure.

Madison McFerrin, Scorpio (Madmcferrin Music)

As everyone who’s ever paid the slightest bit of attention to pop music mythology knows, the best albums come after romantic breakups. That, I’m informed, is the case with this one, but you wouldn’t know it by its smoky, torchy, breezy and ultimately upbeat vibe. As you’d guess, Madison is the daughter of Bobby McFerrin of “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” fame, a sentiment that applies here as far as I’m concerned, but in a much more nuanced, sensual, tech-soulful manner, a la Erykah Badu, if you know who that is (if you don’t, think Anita Baker in fully unlocked mellow mode with a focus on loop-driven acid jazz). Regret and pain and such are part of the lyrical template, yes, but again, it’s meant more as gentle escape for recent divorcees and dumpees, not maudlin Adele epicness for those who feel a need to dwell in what-might-have-beens; it’s quite soothing. If you’re planning ahead, she’ll be at De La Luz in Holyoke, Mass., on Oct. 19, and Space in Portland, Maine, on Oct. 20. A+

Butthole Surfers, Live At The Leather Fly (Sunset Blvd Records)

To the guy who was giving me crap all last year for “covering too much mainstream stuff” (he’s literally been the only one ever [eye-roll emoji]): this oughta make you happy. I’ve always hated this San Antonio, Texas-based psych-punk band’s name more than any of you people do, trust me, but its way-over-the-top weirdness has absolutely earned these guys a star on some Rock ‘n’ Roll Walk Of Fame somewhere; at this point, leaving them out of any non-commercial-rock conversation would be like pretending the Sex Pistols never happened, so let’s just not. Bandleader Gibby Haynes and his boys offered a unique brand of bizarrely skewed but somehow addictive tuneage that often conjured Jello Biafra babbling over your uncle’s garage band as recorded by an answering machine, but it was somehow irresistible. This live set (recorded someplace that’s still unidentified; the “Leather Fly” was a Gibby in-joke) kicks off with a wacky version of “Graveyard” from their 1987 LP, which was when I boarded their victory train to nowhere; it’s an album I’d still tell anyone on Earth to listen to until they like it. What a mess here, but a glorious one. A

_PLAYLIST

A seriously abridged compendium of recent and future CD releases

• This Friday is the Fourth of July, are you drunk yet? I should be, because what am I supposed to be talking about this week, like, what kind of lunatic releases an album on the Fourth of July, when they know full well that anyone who actually buys albums rather than pirate all their music through all those totally suss but workable YouTube-To-MP3 sites will be drunk that day? OK, I expected a bunch of new albums to be released this week on odd days that weren’t Friday the Fourth, but no, I’ve had to go hunting around to find enough albums to fill up this space, because according to Metacritic there’s literally only one more-or-less-notable LP streeting this week, so I suppose I’ll have to do some actual work this week, to find stuff, but for the moment we’ll jump into this horror with Period, the latest from Kesha! Now, not that Kesha’s stuff is distinguishable from half the bling-divas who emerged during the Aughts, but in her defense, she’s something of a survivor, having spent her childhood living in actual poverty, as opposed to the non-actual poverty Billie Eilish was originally purported to have suffered. Then of course was the kerfuffle with her producer Dr. Luke, who allegedly was an abusive lunatic. What does all this mean? Not much, it just means that I’m willing to give Kesha five seconds to impress me with the album’s newest single, “Boy Crazy!” So, it’s got a sort of trance-meets-hip-hop vibe with a side of Mr. Roboto, and the hook is nothing more than a Millennial Whoop bit, which I thought had gone out of style five or 10 years ago, but whatever, all the power to her, I suppose. The video features her lusting after basically every type of guy, including older guys, a growing trend among younger women that I endorse wholeheartedly. She’ll be at the Xfinity Center in Mansfield, Mass., on July 24.

• Like I said earlier, very few albums are being released this Friday, but we can play a little catch-up by talking about Atlanta rapper-singer Lazer Dim 700’s new album, Sins Aloud, which came out on Tuesday, July 1. Lazer, whose real name is Devokeyous Keyshawn Hamilton, is renowned for his breathless ad-lib rhyming, a fetish for primordial 808 beats and bringing a lot of fun to his art (for example, last year’s single “Injoyable” is propelled by a sample of Spongebob Squarepants’ laugh). New single “Undalay” is pretty weird itself, with its drum-less, woozy, Lewis Carroll-redolent beat; in the video, Hamilton spits at top speed (he’s been rapping since second grade, by the way) while fondling stacks of hundred-dollar bills. No tour coming for the moment; last year he was at Boston’s Middle East, in case you were wondering whether he’s “legit underground.”

• Let’s see, what else. On July 3, London, U.K.-based indie-rockers Double Virgo release Shakedown, which is their first full-length, I believe (the two principals, Sam Fenton and Jezmi Tarik Fehmi, also play in the band Bar Italia). I was really impressed by the single “Bemused,” which combines drunken pub-indie/oi with art rock.

• And finally, Pitchfork Media tells me we have a new record from another Londoner, Nilüfer Yanya, namely the Dancing Shoes EP, which came out on Wednesday, July 2! The single, “Where To Look,” is more upbeat and tribal-sounding (she grew up on Turkish music) than your average Chappell Roan tune. She’ll play three shows in Massachusetts (one at the Drake in Amherst and two at the Roadrunner in Boston) from Sept. 9 through Sept. 11.