Fucked Up have released “Year of the Horse – Act Two”, the second track of the Toronto punk band’s latest EP celebrating the Chinese Zodiac. Stream it via Bandcamp below. The 26-minute epic is written like a play. It contains seven different scenes starring a cast of more than a dozen characters, which are detailed in the liner notes the band made available on WeTransfer. The song mixes disparate sounds from straightforward punk rock to spaghetti-western to doom metal, and includes guest vocals from singers Tuka Mohammed, Eidolon, and Maegan Brooks Mills. “Act Two” appears on the four-track EP, Year of the Horse. Fucked Up is dedicating the project to Texas hardcore icons Wade Allison of Iron Age and Riley Gale of Power Trip, both of whom were friends with the group prior to their deaths. ...
Hard rockers Dirty Honey have announced that their self-titled debut album will arrive April 23rd. The L.A. band has also shared the music video for the opening track and lead single, “California Dreamin’”. Not to be confused with the ’60s pop hit of the same name by The Mamas and the Papas, Dirty Honey’s take on the Golden State is a darker portrayal. Vocalist and lyricist Marc LaBelle said the track and its video explain that the Cali dream is just that: a dream. It doesn’t always come true. “Lots of people come out to California, chasing a dream, and sometimes, people just don’t make it,” LaBelle said in a press release. “California isn’t always the ‘land of milk and honey,’ dreams don’t always come true here, and that’s the perspective this song and video take. The video is a dream thr...
In our Track by Track feature, artists guide listeners through each track on their latest release. Here, Regional Justice Center singer Ian Shelton pulls back the curtain on the band’s new album Crime and Punishment. Hardcore act Regional Justice Center have unleashed their new album, Crime and Punishment, out now via Closed Casket Activities. The LP clocks in at a blistering 13 minutes but leaves an impression that lasts far longer. The album shares its name with the legendary novel by Fyodor Dostoevsky and tackles similarly weighty themes of postmodern existence. As RJC vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Ian Shelton explains in the remarks below, many real-life events inspired the passionate outbursts of anger and disillusionment heard throughout Crime and Punishment. Shelton previously ...
Last year, the never-ending bleakness of the coronavirus pandemic prompted The Streets to release a mixtape with the ominous title of None of Us Are Getting Out of This Life Alive. Now that things are actually looking up in the UK, the project’s mastermind Mike Skinner is ready to celebrate with a positive mood and a new single called “Who’s Got The Bag (21st June)”. Stream it below. “It’s been too long since I’ve been behind some decks, or on a stage, in a tour bus sleeping in a bunk,” said Skinner in a statement. “The moment we can do it we want to be the rave and we will. It’s also about hospitality, events and nightclubs not being able to take anymore. It’s a protest song, it’s saying, don’t change the date on us again! FIRST IN THE ROOM. 21 June.” It’s clear Skinner concocted “Who’s G...
Country superstar Miranda Lambert has teamed up with songwriters Jack Ingram and Jon Randall for the new album The Marfa Tapes. It drops May 7th, and to preview the release, the group has unveiled the lead single “In His Arms”. Lambert, Ingram, and Randall are hardly strangers; the trio previously collaborated on Lambert’s twice Grammy-nominated single “Tin Man” (2016), as well as the fan favorite “Tequila Does” (2019). Fresh takes on both of those songs will appear on The Marfa Tapes, but the majority of the 15-track effort has never been heard outside of Marfa, Texas. The small town is home to only about 1,800 people, but for five days last November it also hosted three musicians, two microphones, and one acoustic guitar. The stripped-down recording session tried to capture the stark bea...
Three years after she set out to write and record her own music, rising Fijian rapper Jesswar has just released her debut EP TROPIXX via Inertia Music/PIAS. Stream it below via Apple Music and Spotify. TROPIXX is a six-track EP meant to introduce listeners to Jesswar’s range of skills. On the previously released singles “Medusa” and “Venom”, she shows off a verbal tenacity and community-driven storytelling that seeks to empower fellow marginalized people, and that remains true for the other tracks on the EP. The way she sees it, holistic independence doesn’t have to mean you’re estranged from kinship or unity. “When I first started writing TROPIXX, I was tired of being overlooked, and I knew I had a lot to say. It was really upsetting to wake up every day and see how women of color are con...
For her first full-length project since 2018’s Be the Cowboy, Mitski wrote and recorded the soundtrack to the graphic novel This Is Where We Fall. It’s out May 5th, and as a taste of things to come, the 30-year-old songwriter has shared the new song “The Baddy Man”. Written by Chris Miskiewicz and illustrated by Vincent Kings, This Is Where We Fall combines science fiction and Western tropes to tell a tale of death and the afterlife. It will be available in both softcover and hardcover editions, though the hardcover has the added bonus of coming with Mitski’s soundtrack on cassette. Besides that, 1,000 copies of a deluxe edition will also be released, and that iteration includes her score on vinyl. In a statement to Rolling Stone, Mitski said, “It was exciting to make a...
Kings of Leon have unveiled their first album in five years, When You See Yourself. Stream it below via Apple Music or Spotify. The 11-song effort is the Nashville-bred band’s first full-length since 2016’s WALLS. They previewed the album with three singles — “The Bandit”, “100,000 People”, and “Echoing” — but the most compelling aspect of the rollout process had nothing to do with the sound of the music (which is quite good). Earlier this week, the group announced that they were going to be the first band to ever release an entire album in NFT form — that’s “non-fungible token” for those who aren’t aware. NFT’s are essentially a cryptocurrency for art: images, videos, music, and even items like concert tickets that are sold on an online marketplace like Bitcoin. In add...
Life tastes good when you’re cashing that corporate check. Tyler, the Creator caught the wave when he had the opportunity to create music for a new Coca-Cola commercial. The ad dropped last month, and now the hip-hop artist has released its soundtrack as a standalone recording. Entitled “Tell Me How”, the track itself doesn’t have much lyrical content — “Tell me how it tastes/ Yeah, good good good” gets you through most of it — but it’s the manic energy that really makes it a Tyler original. The track jumps with electric arcs between different moments of impatient peace and wilin’ out. According to Tyler himself, that’s him playing flute on the intro. “Tell Me How” is definitely a frantically fun cut, which fits the Coke ad’s visuals perfectly. The clip sees people from various walks ...
Drake has released his second Scary Hours EP. It serves as a follow-up to his 2018 EP of the same name. Stream it below via Apple Music and Spotify. Like his last Scary Hours release, this new EP only includes a few songs — three to be exact. “What’s Next” opens the EP, followed by “Wants and Needs” featuring Lil Baby and “Lemon Pepper Freestyle” featuring Rick Ross. Chances are Drake is hoping some of these tracks will blow up and can then be tacked onto Certified Lover Boy, his new album due out this year. After all, that plan worked surprisingly well with the last EP when “God’s Plan” became a smash hit and scored a proper spot on Scorpion. Speaking of, Certified Lover Boy was technically supposed to be out in January, but that month has since come and gone. Drake hasn’t updated fans on...
Denzel Curry and Kenny Beats have unleashed their new UNLOCKED 1.5 EP. The project is a reworking of their joint EP, 2020’s UNLOCKED, and can be streamed below via Apple Music and Spotify. The eight-track project features remixed versions of UNLOCKED songs produced by The Alchemist, Jay Versace, Robert Glasper, Charlie Heat, Sango, and more. Joey Bada$$, Smino, Benny the Butcher, Arlo Parks, and Kenny Mason contributed feature verses. Previously released singles include Glasper’s version of “So.Incredible.pkg” featuring Smino, and the Joey Bada$$-assisted “Cosmic’.m4a” remix produced by The Alchemist. Denzel has stayed busy this year with guest appearances. He hopped on J.I.D’s “Bruuuh” remix, was featured on slowthai’s “terms”, and teamed up with Nyck Caution on “Bad Day”. Kenny has ...