The Alarm, Transformation (Twenty First Century/Virgin Records)

This may or may not be the final album from this Welsh new-wave band under its original name, whose tuneage I’ve previously described as a kinder, gentler Clash or a more aggressive U2. Last year, bandleader Mike Peters finally lost his battle with the cancer that had been attacking him for 30 years; Peters’ son Evan is now fronting the band as “The Alarm Presented by Evan Peters,” while original bassist Eddie McDonald is leading “The Alarm 2.0,” but whatever, this may be it for The Alarm proper, a band that was maligned since birth in the British press for being derivative and pretentious and only scored one hit in the U.S. (“Sold Me Down the River,” which ripped off “Bang A Gong,” for the Gen Xers who can remember all that stuff). This one leads off with “New Life,” which, um, derivatively enough, is basically a jam-out version of Gary Glitter’s “Rock n Roll Part 2.” But most of the other songs are fine, like “Chimera,” a stadium-ready protest-stomper that’s a lot better than that U2 EP I reviewed here the other week, if you’re a fan who needs to read some faint praise. B

Anyma and Lisa, “Bad Angel” (Interscope Records)

You know, if there’s anything that gets on my nerves about the current timeline with regard to the music-tastemaking space, it’s the blinding array of collaborations between (mostly disparate) artists. I mean, I get that we’re in a post-band/post-album world, but every other day it seems like there’s a new pair of strange bedfellows barfing out a single that wants to squeeze money out of today’s youth, a cohort that’s of course more concerned with preserving what’s left of their mental health than maintaining their hipness level. Records like this one remind me of the one-off Marvel Team-Up comic books of my youth, which were cynically intended to, among other things, expose regular Iron Man readers to the improbable world of the Silver Surfer, that sort of thing. This tune, with its dark, melodic techno, could have just as easily been promoted as an “Anyma feat Lisa” joint and added to his next ÆDEN album or whatnot; Lisa’s just got more ethereal reverb/next-gen-Autotune effectage on her vanilla-diva voice here than usual. It’s not any more interesting than Chris Avantgarde’s stuff, let’s say, and furthermore — oh, wait, I get it, she’s headlining Coachella this year, that’s what this is about. Well played, Interscope, well played (eyeroll emoji). D+

_PLAYLIST

A seriously abridged compendium of recent and future CD releases

• Friday, April 17, is almost here, my dudes, so what will you do to advance the cause of rock ’n’ roll in our republic on that album release day? Just look at all the new albums that are coming out that day, the bigly-est albums ever in the history of the universe, until next Friday! Look at all these new albums, and never even mind that it’s already too late to talk about The World Is To Dig, the new one from famous Weezer-for-dummies children’s band They Might Be Giants, who did the Malcolm in the Middle song at the dawn of the Aughts, before the last flickers of hope for humanity began to falter, remember those days, and all the faltering? Yup, it’s too late to talk about this new They Might Be Giants album, because that one actually came out on Tuesday, even though Tuesdays stopped serving as the traditional album release weekday in 2015, according to this pesky spamming Google AI bot, who says “Tuesdays officially stopped being the traditional day for album releases in the United States on July 10, 2015, when the industry shifted to ‘Global Release Day’ (or New Music Fridays) to align releases with Fridays in more than 45 countries, reducing music piracy and syncing with streaming culture.” Of course, that tradition has been obsolete for years now, now that everyone simply uses YouTube-to-MP3 sites to rip music for their mixtapes, naïvely expecting their virus protection software to — you know, protect them from viruses, which it can’t when people are practically begging to get hacked, but can’t we just stick to Global Release Day Fridays anyway? Is nothing sacred anymore, but belay that patently naïve question, nothing has been sacred since Walmart started making their people work on Thanksgiving starting in the 1980s (that is until 2020, when even Walmart realized how stupid that was). But let’s just pretend They Might Whatever weren’t the Walmart of children’s emo bands and were putting out their new album this Friday, what would I say about their new single, “Wu-Tang?” Well, I’d probably say that it was an uninteresting, strummy, mid-tempo children’s singalong that has no Wu Tang guest-feats on it, but it’s too late to talk about it, so let’s just move along.

• Canadian DJ/producer Tiga releases “Hotlife” this week. As always, “Hot Wife” is a fun and silly track, but this time it is slow and stompy and makes use of the “Bugatti snare” drum sound, which impressed one YouTube commenter enough to make a fuss about it, which was kind of stupid to see. The tune is a collaboration with German producer Boys Noize, who’s usually pretty selective about whom he collaborates with (which is neat and everything, but I’m sure if the Muppets called he’d be on the next flight. See how the Matrix works?).

• Honey Dijon (Honey Redmond) is a renowned Black American DJ, producer and fashion icon with an energetic DJ style that leans heavily on “golden-era disco, techno and house,” so maybe her new single “The Nightlife” from her new album Nightlife will be fun to listen to and have nothing to do with the old 1978 Alicia Bridges song, because my nerves can only handle so much today. Nope, this song is a torchy sexytime thing in the vein of Kylie Minogue, I don’t mind it.

• And finally it’s Canadian alt-rock band Arkells with a new LP titled Between Us. “Next Summer” is a pretty neat tune, catchy, the singer is really good in an old-school way, like a cross between Michael Bolton and the dude from The Outfield (just Google them, guys).

NOTE: Local (NH) bands seeking album or EP reviews can message me on Twitter/Bluesky (@esaeger) or Facebook (eric.saeger.9).

Featured Photo: Anyma and Lisa, “Bad Angel” and The Alarm, Transformation