The music world has been a lot this week. The Kendrick/Drake beef rapidly escalated over the weekend and then seemingly came to a halt (most agree that Kendrick won), and on Wednesday we received the tragic news that Steve Albini unexpectedly passed away after a heart attack. Tons of musicians have paid tribute to him, and we’re still reeling from the loss as well. Music is not going to be the same without him.
As for this week’s new albums, I highlight seven below, and Bill tackles another eight in Indie Basement, including Les Savy Fav, Arab Strap, Shannon & the Clams, Dehd, Bibi Club, Myriam Gendron, and albums from two different former Bad Seeds members, Mick Harvey and Barry Adamson.
On top of those, this week’s honorable mentions include Kings of Leon, Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats, Amen Dunes, Take Offense, Pokey LaFarge, Chief Keef, Ghostface Killah, Conway the Machine, Gunna, Orville Peck, A.G. Cook, No Good With Secrets (Ogbert the Nerd), MRCY, Villagers, NIBOOWIN, Bad Beat, Bossk, I. Jordan, Jordan Rakei, Amy O, Sofia Bolt, Iglooghost, Arcadia Grey, Thot, youbet, Josienne Clarke, Eat Defeat, Big Special, Angus & Julia Stone, Mary Lattimore & Walt McClements, Jim White & Marisa Anderson, Clementine Was Right, Rainbow Kitten Surprise, Lunchbox, Abigail Lapell, Kalan.FrFr, Kaash Paige, BigXThaPlug/Ro$ama/Yung Hood, Yambag, Eat Defeat, Yhapojj, Borer, Milan Ring, Kiefer, Xana, Gabrielle, Jackie West, Bayway, Friday Pilots Club, Vicky Farewell, Morgan Guerin, Brutus VIII, LYLO, Sisso & Maiko, Darkness Everywhere, Six Feet Under, Thunderpussy, Judah & The Lion, Sebastian Bach, Sublime With Rome, the iLoveMakonnen EP, the flypaper EP, the Snow Strippers EP, and the I Saw the TV Glow soundtrack.
Read on for my picks. What’s your favorite release of the week?
Knocked Loose – You Won’t Go Before You’re Supposed To
Pure Noise
You Won’t Go Before You’re Supposed To is only Knocked Loose’s third album in a 10+ year career, and it’s their first in five years (though it does also follow 2021’s A Tear in the Fabric of Life, a 21-minute EP that feels as monstrous as plenty of full-length albums), so I get the sense that Knocked Loose are the type of band who only want to drop an album if they know it’s a step forward, and You Won’t Go Before You’re Supposed To absolutely is. They made it with producer Drek Fulk, who works with massive heavy bands like Papa Roach, Disturbed, and (past Knocked Loose tourmates) Motionless In White and A Day To Remember, and the album also features two mainstream-metal-friendly guests: Poppy and Motionless In White’s Chris Motionless. Guitarist/backing vocalist Isaac Hale also promised when the album was announced that the album goes “the fastest we’ve ever gone” and “the scariest we’ve ever gone,” as well as “the catchiest and the most melodic that we’ve ever gone,” and vocalist Bryan Garris spoke in a recent interview with New Noise about Knocked Loose being “heavy music for normal people” and feeling that it was “very important for all of us to maintain accessibility.” So, with that producer, those guests, and promises of catchy melodies and accessibility, it might look on paper like Knocked Loose are finally making the radio-friendly jump that so many heavy bands have made before them, but that isn’t the case at all. Drew Fulk’s production has a definite shine to it, but in a way that somehow makes Knocked Loose sound even more abrasive, and the guest appearances from Poppy and Chris Motionless are just as brutal as Bryan’s shrieks and Isaac’s death growls. It’s not that the album goes from being catchy to being scary; it’s the catchiest Knocked Loose album and the scariest Knocked Loose album at the exact same time. They’ve funneled all of their brutality into the leanest, most concise songs they’ve ever written. It’s catchy just in how it’s structured, not because it has even a single clean, singalong chorus. “Heavy music for normal people” is a good way of putting it, and I’d also just add that it’s heavy music for everyone. You Won’t Go Before You’re Supposed To is the dose of brutality you need in your life, even if you’d never identify as a metalhead or a hardcore kid, and it’s also music for metalheads and hardcore kids. If you think you’re too evil or too punk for Knocked Loose, you’ve got it backwards.
Yaya Bey – Ten Fold
Big Dada
“I usually try to have this whole thematic thing when I go into albums,” says New York’s Yaya Bey. “But this album I just made as life was happening.” Like life itself, Ten Fold juggles all kinds of concerns at once–concerns about society/politics, the economy, grief, love, sexuality, and more, making for an album that’s as much about Yaya herself as it is about the world around her. With production from Corey Fonville of Butcher Brown, Karriem Riggins, Jay Daniel, Exaktly and Boston Chery, the album seamlessly weaves between smooth neo-soul, airy R&B, thumping funk, hip hop, clubby electronics, reggae, and more in a way that sounds a lot more casual in execution than it might on paper. Everything Yaya does on this album sounds cool and confident, from the constant genre-blurring to the way she delivers even some of the most dreadful topics with a sense of humor. It’s an album that’s deceptively chill, with much more than meets the eye (or ear) on a cursory listen.
How To Dress Well – I Am Toward You
Sargent House
How To Dress Well (aka Tom Krell) have evolved a lot over the years, from helping to pioneer the 2010s alt-R&B movement, to pivoting towards something poppier in the middle of that decade, to ending up back in a more experimental zone on 2018’s The Anteroom. I Am Toward You, his first album since The Anteroom, picks up where its predecessor left off without sounding like a retread at all. Multiple people (including Tom himself) compared The Anteroom to the Low album released that same year (Double Negative), and I Am Toward You gives me Low vibes too–it sounds like someone shattering pop music like a glass and putting the pieces back together again. The album was made with CFCF, Chris Votek, Joel Ford, Josh Clancy, Trayer Tryon (Hundred Waters), Brian Allen Simon (ANENON), and Aaron Charles Read, and it pulls as much from glistening beauty as it does from static noise. It’s a deeply experimental album made by a person that also clearly has a deep love for pure pop music. As they say, you have to learn the rules in order to break them.
Hot Water Music – Vows
Equal Vision
Hot Water Music turn 30 this year, and they’re celebrating on a 30th anniversary tour with some amazing openers (Quicksand, Modern Life Is War, The Ergs!, Be Well, Off With Their Heads, and AVAIL’s Tim Barry, varying by date), and they’ve also got a new album for the occasion. Consistency is one of the traits that’s carried Hot Water Music for almost three straight decades (save for a couple brief hiatuses), and consistency is exactly what they bring to Vows. This sounds like the Hot Water Music we knew and loved by the time of their career-altering 2002 album Caution, and it was produced by the same person who produced that album, Brian McTernan (who currently sings in Be Well). Like the tour, they’ve brought some friends along for this ride; Vows features guest vocals from Thrice on “Fences,” Alexisonfire/City and Colour’s Dallas Green on “After The Impossible,” The Interrupters on “Much Love,” Popeye of Farside on “Wildfire,” and Turnstile’s Brendan Yates (plus percussion from Turnstile’s Daniel Fang) on “Remnants.” (Turnstile, by the way, were named after a Hot Water Music song.) And being that The Flatliners’ Chris Cresswell has been in the band since 2017, they’ve got his voice in the mix too, joining the iconic gravelly roars of Chuck Ragan and Chris Wollard. As star-studded as it sounds on paper, though, Vows mostly just sounds like Hot Water Music keeping their heads down. Their famous friends generally provide background roles, rather than show-stealing guest verses. It’s just Hot Water Music doing what they do best, and it’s always a treat to hear that from one of the most down-to-earth, important bands of the last quarter-century.
Kelsey Waldon – There’s Always A Song
Oh Boy
Putting your own spin on standards/traditionals/other people’s songs has been part of country music forever, and John Prine protégé Kelsey Waldon continues that tradition with her new album There’s Always A Song, released on the late Prine’s Oh Boy Records. Every song on here has been in the country canon for decades, but calling it a “covers album” undersells it. Kelsey takes these time-tested songs and she brings them into the modern world, breathing new life into them and making them her own. If you didn’t know any better, you might just think these were originals, and even if you have heard others sing them, I think it’s fair to say you haven’t heard them quite like this. Adding to the appeal, Kelsey brings in some talented friends, including Margo Price, Amanda Shires, S.G. Goodman, and 49 Winchester’s Isaac Gibson, who are all in the same alt-friendly country galaxy as Kelsey herself. “These songs are deep. They were here long before me, and they will be here long after I’m gone, after any of us are here,” Kelsey says. “It’s like they live in some kind of universe that just survives forever. These songs know the secrets to life.”
Demersal – Demersal
self-released
If you didn’t know what you were getting yourself into with this LP, the delicate acoustic guitars and hushed clean vocals of opening track “Flakkende Som Tusinde Lys” would not have you thinking it was a screamo LP. But, just seconds after that song’s final note, Demersal come roaring in with the metallic riffage and throat-shredding screams of “Bedrager.” The album is rooted in the grand, towering style of screamo that Europe tends to be best known for, and it incorporates everything from black metal to ambient post-rock to horns to electronics, all while tackling topics that range from depression to capitalism to the “hyper digital society” we live in to having some glimmer of hope in this fucked up world. It’s an intense, impactful LP, and I highly recommend checking it out if you’re into heavy music in any capacity.
For much more on this LP, read the band’s track-by-track breakdown.
Grupo Frontera – Jugando A Que No Pasa Nada
self-released
Texas norteño band Grupo Frontera had a massive breakout year in 2023 with their debut album El Comienzo and its Bad Bunny-featuring hit “un x100to” coming in the midst of regional Mexican music’s global takeover, and now they’ve already followed it with their sophomore album less than one year earlier. Like collaborator Peso Pluma, Grupo Frontera climbed up the charts with a sound that’s fairly acoustic and traditional sounding, and Jugando A Que No Pasa Nada still has a lot of that but it brings in some more modern sounds too, like the clubby, electronics-infused “Desquite” (ft. Nicki Nicole) and the trap beats of “Me Hizo Un Favor.” With the Christian Nodal-featuring “Ya Pedo Quién Sabe,” they’ve got one of the year’s finest country ballads. The multi-genre approach is something they did very intentionally, vocalist/bajo quinto player Payo Solís told The FADER, so people “can find their beat, in our album, with their cultural language.” It’s a move that’s savvy but doesn’t come off as cynical. It’s an effective way to rope in even more types of music fans than they have already, and it all sounds natural for Grupo Frontera.
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Read Indie Basement for more new album reviews, including Les Savy Fav, Arab Strap, Shannon & the Clams, Dehd, Bibi Club, Myriam Gendron, and albums from two different former Bad Seeds members, Mick Harvey and Barry Adamson.
Looking for more recent releases? Browse the Notable Releases archive or scroll down for previous weeks.
Looking for a podcast to listen to? Check out our recent episodes with VIAL, Glitterer, and more.
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