New Album Announcement
Gojira Announce New Album Fortitude, Unleash “Born for One Thing”: Stream
Gojira have announced their highly anticipated new album, Fortitude, which arrives on April 30th via Roadrunner Records. The acclaimed French metal band has also unveiled the single “Born for One Thing” along with an accompanying music video. The song follows the melodic groove of Gojira’s 2020 surprise track “Another World” (which turned out to be the first taste of Fortitude, as it’s included on the tracklist). The band’s metallic precision is guided by passionate vocals that find the sweet spot between harsh and melodic. The sense that the musical cohesion could implode at any point creates a rising tension, driving home the philosophical lyrical content. “We have to practice detaching ourselves from everything, beginning with actual things,” frontman Joe Duplantier said of the song’s “...
McKinley Dixon Announces New Album, Shares “make a poet Black”: Stream
McKinley Dixon will make his Spacebomb Records debut on May 7th with the new album For My Mama and Anyone Who Look Like Her. The emerging MC is previewing the release with the lead single, “make a poet Black”. In 2018, with little industry support, Dixon put himself on the map with a pair of self-released LPs, The Importance of Self Belief and Who Taught You to Hate Yourself? That output attracted the attention of Matthew E. White’s Spacebomb label, which is better known for folk- and funk-inflected artists like Natalie Prass, Hiss Golden Messenger, and Fruit Bats. But setting genre aside, Spacebomb has become a home for incisive lyricism, and in that sense, Dixon fits right in. For My Mama and Anyone Who Look Like Her is an album-length exploration of trauma and time. As Dixon m...
Ryley Walker Announces New Album Course in Fable, Shares “Rang Dizzy”: Stream
Ryley Walker has announced the new album Course in Fable. It arrives April 2nd from his own Husky Pants Records, and you can catch a preview with the winding, witty “Rang Dizzy”. Walker’s last album in the traditional sense of the word was 2018’s Deafman Glance, though with its leisurely instrumental interludes, ‘traditional’ might be a bit of a stretch. He followed that with The Lillywhite Sessions, a not-especially-faithful cover of a lost Dave Matthews Band record, the jazzy Charles Rumback collaboration Little Common Twist, and, last week, the jam-heavy live set Deep Fried Grandeur performed with Kikagaku Moyo. Over the last three years he’s been busy, bordering on prolific, but the music hasn’t always accommodated itself to popular tastes. If “Rang Dizzy” is any in...
Lars Ulrich’s Father Has Released a New Album at Age 92
Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich’s father, Torben Ulrich, has released a new album at age 92. The spoken-word collaboration with cellist Lori Goldston is titled Oakland moments: cello, voice, reuniting (rejoicing) and arrived on Bandcamp and limited cassette tape on February 5th. The album features Torben reciting text and poetry over Goldston’s cello. If that triggers a Lulu flashback, don’t worry: Goldston’s playing quite pleasant, and Torben’s narration has a relaxing ASMR vibe to it. Lars took to Instagram to congratulate his father: “92 years old and just getting started…Today, as one does at his age, he’s putting out another record… This one being a collaboration with his dear friend @legoldston.” The fact that Torben is releasing new music at age 92 shouldn’t be too surprising. He’s ma...
Pell Announces New Album with NOLA Collective GLBL WRMNG, Shares “504”: Stream
Rapper/producer Pell has formed the new musical collective GLBL WRMNG with dozens of his fellow artists from New Orleans. Their debut album glbl wrmng vol. 1 is out February 19th, and today they’ve shared the lead single, “501”. GLBL WRMNG is an expansive project, with contributions from dozens of producers and artists including Jelly of Tank and The Bangas, Malik NinetyFive, Jzzle, Lil Iceberg, Kr3wcial, and $leazy EZ. That inclusivity is by design; Pell set out to foster connections in the NOLA songwriting community. As he explained in a statement, “I wanted to make records with all my hometown friends that didn’t have to be just Pell records that could showcase the talent of New Orleans and what we had to offer. I wanted to executively produce this record and then give us all somet...
Unborn Baby Records Debut Album
For decades, musicians have recorded music with the specific intent of helping foster child development in utero and teach soon-to-be kids iconic rap hooks. Now the tables have turned: an unborn baby has recorded her debut album, presumably for the enjoyment of full-grown humans. The baby, named Luca Yupanqui, is the soon-to-be child of Psychic Ills bassist Elizabeth Hart and Lee “Scratch” Perry collaborator Iván Diaz Mathé. Yupanqui created the songs on her album using biosonic MIDI technology that translated her in-utero movements into sound. The MIDI device was hooked to Hart’s stomach, recorded the vibrations created by Yupanqui, and transcribed them into Mathé’s synthesizers, a meditative process that took place over five hour-long sessions. Hart and Mathé then edited and mixed the re...
Cannibal Corpse Announce New Album Violence Unimagined
Death metal pioneers Cannibal Corpse have announced their 15th studio album, Violence Unimagined — one of our most anticipated heavy albums of 2021. They also premiered the lead single, “Inhuman Harvest”, on Monday (February 1st) via SiriusXM’s “Liquid Metal” program. Needless to say, Cannibal Corpse haven’t let up over their 30-plus year career, and “Inhuman Harvest” is as brutal as ever. George “Corpsegrinder” Fisher spews forth his vocals offer a bed of necrotic downtuned death metal. It’s classic Cannibal Corpse, and we wouldn’t want it any other way. That said, it’s uncertain whether troubled guitarist Pat O’Brien is on the recording. All signs indicate that O’Brien — who was involved a bizarre incident involving over 80 firearms and human skulls in 2018 — was not in the studio when C...
Neil Young Announces Unreleased 1982 Album Johnny’s Island and New Film Trans: The Animated Story
The holidays are over, but the Neil Young Archives is the gift that keeps on giving. Young has announced a pair of projects centered around his 1982 album Trans. The first is the unreleased LP Johnny’s Island, recorded with the Trans band in 1982, and the second is a new film entitled Trans: The Animated Story. Trans was a significant departure from Young’s folk-inflected rock, and its release became one of the more controversial moments in his career. With synthesizers and heavy doses of vocoder, it was inspired by the robopop of Kraftwerk as well as his own attempts to communicate with his nonverbal son, Ben. Many fans hated it, and Geffen Records sued Young for not sounding like himself. Almost 40 years later, time has dulled some of the sharper takes, and while few would...
Adrian Smith (Iron Maiden) and Richie Kotzen Detail New Album, Share “Taking My Chances” Video: Watch
Iron Maiden guitarist Adrian Smith and veteran rocker Richie Kotzen have detailed their new collaborative debut album, Smith/Kotzen, which arrives March 26th. The duo have also shared a music video for the previously released lead single, “Taking My Chances”. The collab between the two friends was born from a mutual appreciation for the blues guitar style, as evidenced on “Taking My Chances”. Smith and Kotzen are both highly gifted players, and their world-class fretwork is truly impressive in tandem. In addition to an extensive solo discography, Kotzen has been a member of Poison, Mr. Big, and The Winery Dogs. Fans of virtuoso guitar performances should look no further than the song’s accompanying video. Smith and Kotzen’s skills are front and center, as the camera primarily focuses ...
Pino Palladino and Blake Mills Announce New Collaborative Album, Share “Just Wrong”: Stream
Acclaimed musicians Pino Palladino and Blake Mills have combined their talents on a new joint album. Notes with Attachments is due for release on March 12th via New Deal/Impulse! Records. The forthcoming LP was originally envisioned as a solo album from Palladino, a Grammy-winning songwriter, producer, and bassist best known for his work on D’Angelo’s Voodoo and Black Messiah albums, as well as projects with Nine Inch Nails, Adele, and Perfume Genius. However, Mills’ input eventually led to the realization that a full-fledged collaborative effort would bring out the best in them both. “It all evolved from me playing Blake a few ideas, getting a reaction from [him] and seeing if he’d be interested in working on [them],” Palladino explained in a statement. “As the project evol...
Hardcore Band Regional Justice Center Announce New Album, Unleash “Absence” and “Inhuman Joy”: Stream
Hardcore quartet Regional Justice Center have announced their sophomore full-length, Crime and Punishment. The band has also shared two fiery songs from the LP, “Absence” and “Inhuman Joy”. The album follows a prolific string of 7-inch splits and EPs by Regional Justice Center, who paired their output with an exhaustive touring itinerary prior to the pandemic. In the meantime, the band’s calculated intensity has grown even more ferocious, as heard on new tracks “Absence” and “Inhuman Joy”. The songs operate in a duality, the former holding to a classic hardcore template of blasting rhythms and urgent lyricism, and the latter pitched down to a bass-heavy dirge. The distinct writing style of vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Ian Shelton shows through on both tracks. In a press release, the...
’68 Announce New Album, Share “The Knife, The Knife, The Knife”: Stream
Former Norma Jean and The Chariot singer Josh Scogin has announced a new album from his current project ’68. It’s called Give One Take One and due out on March 26th via Cooking Vinyl. He’s has also shared the music video for the lead single, “The Knife, The Knife, The Knife”. Scogin himself created the video for the heavy single, which leans more toward garage rock as opposed to the metalcore and hardcore punk of his previous bands. Hints of blues fuse with a noisy post-hardcore edge, resulting in a massive wall of sound — impressive considering ’68 are only two individuals: Scogin and drummer Nikko Yamada. “Of all the music I’ve created over the years, this album holds some of my very favorite moments, lyrically, musically, and even mentally; I travel down several roads that are...
