CDs + Vinyl:
AFI – AFI (The Blood Album) CD/LP (Concord)
“Eclectic punk godfathers AFI are the kings of keeping going, progressing over more than twenty-five years from outsiders to insiders to chart-topping legends. At this point, they have little to prove – but AFI are not yet ready to settle back on their laurels and fossilize into a nostalgia act. They still have plenty left to give – and more than a few fans hungry for more music. AFI – also known as “The Blood Album” – is precision-engineered to satisfy AFI fans old and new. As a whole, it feels like a relay race started off by AFI’s slicker, more commercially oriented side (the pace set by ‘Dark Snow,’ ‘Still A Stranger,’ ‘Aurelia,’ ‘Hidden Knives,’ ‘Get Hurt,’ and ‘Above The Bridge’) and continued with raw, aggressive style that proves AFI haven’t forgotten their roots (‘Dumb Kids,’ ‘Pink Eyes,’ ‘Feed From The Floor,’ ‘White Offerings,’ and ‘She Speaks The Language’) before finally finishing with a self-stretching, end-of-the-line blues dirge (‘The Wind That Carries Me Away’). In the middle, there’s also an anticipation-building changeover as ‘So Beneath You’ bursts out as AFI’s old-school punky herald, gives way to accessible sing-along ‘Snow Cats,’ and the aforementioned aggression really gets going from ‘Dumb Kids’ onwards” – TheMusicalMeltingPot. [Limited color vinyl pressing also available.]
Bill Anschell – Rumbler CD (Origin)
After a decade of recording mostly unscripted, improvised albums focused on his deep musical relationships with a few key players, pianist Bill Anschell returns to recording his own compositions and arrangements on Rumbler, his fifteenth as a leader or co-leader. Anschell penned eight of the eleven tracks as well as arrangements of Thelonious Monk’s “Misterioso” and Paul McCartney’s “For No One.”
As It Is – okay. CD/LP (Fearless)
New album from the British pop/punk band. [Limited color vinyl pressing also available.]
As Lions – Selfish Age CD/LP (Better Noise)
New release from the British hard rock quintet.
Austra – Future Politics CD/LP+MP3 (Domino)
“The notion of Utopia doesn’t have a lot of currency these days, but that hasn’t stopped Katie Stelmanis. The creative force behind the Canadian electronic outfit Austra, she’s used the project’s new album, Future Politics, to foment a kind of radicalism in an age of doom and gloom: making music that questions, confronts and uplifts without scaremongering or sugarcoating. She’s also not being shy. ‘Utopia,’ the album’s lead single, telegraphs her intent with unabashed optimism. Amid sculpted beats and soaring melodies, Stelmanis sings of urban life and alienation in an era of social division and injustice. But she’s militant about lining those dark clouds with silver — or, as she puts it, ‘I can picture a place where everybody feels it, too / It might be fiction, but I see it ahead.’ Whether cloaking itself in code, dipping into metaphor or flying proclamations up the flagpole, these 11 songs offer a bracing, coolly tuneful vision of tomorrow that refuses to submit to inertia. In an era when simply resisting dystopia can seem idealistic, Future Politics dares to hope big.” – NPR
Avec le Soleil Sortant de sa Bouche – Pas Pire Pop, I Love You So Much CD/LP (Constellation)
Psychedelic rock, krautrock, desert rock, punk rock, noise rock, Afrobeat, experimental pop, post-rock, electronic; all are touchstones for Avec le Soleil Sortant de sa Bouche. Their multi-movement durational music arguably combines trance rock and audio collage above all — a diced and spliced approach to longform multi-movement groove music played by a stripped down quartet of two guitars, bass and drums, synched to pre-recorded electronics and musique concrète.
Aversions Crown – Xenocide CD (Nuclear Blast)
“Aversions Crown are keeping up the time-honored tradition of Australian metal bands doing what they do best: playing stupidly heavy music that makes you want to commit heinous acts of violence in the mosh pit.” – Heavy Blog Is Heavy
