CDs + Vinyl:

Accept – The Rise Of Chaos CD/2xLP (Nuclear Blast)
Fifteenth studio album from the Teutonic metal band. [Limited color vinyl pressing also available.]

Black Grape – Pop Voodoo CD/LP (MCA/Radioactive)
The ragtag bunch of Madchester veterans Black Grape have returned with a new album, Pop Voodoo, the band’s first new material in 20 years. Happy Mondays and Black Grape frontman Shaun Ryder is once again joined by the original British b-boy and former Ruthless Rap Assassin, Kermit to make genre-melding music and take aim at today’s cultural climate.

Bonehunter – Sexual Panic Human Machine CD/LP (Hell’s Headbangers)
Second album from the Finnish thrash/punk/black metal trio.

Tyler Childers – Purgatory CD/LP (Hickman Holler)
Like many great Southern storytellers, singer-songwriter Tyler Childers has fallen in love with a place. The people, landmarks and legendary moments from his childhood home of Lawrence County, Kentucky populate the ten songs on his formidable debut, Purgatory, an album that’s simultaneously modern and as ancient as the Appalachian Mountains in which events unfold. The album, co-produced by Grammy Award winners Sturgill Simpson and David Ferguson, is a semi-autobiographical sketch of Childers’ growth from wayward youth to happily married man, told in the tradition of a Southern gothic novel with a classic noir antihero who may just be irredeemable. Purgatory is a chiaroscuro painting with darkness framing light in high relief. There’s catharsis and redemption. Sin and temptation. Murder and deceit. Demons and angels. Moonshine and cocaine. So much moonshine and cocaine. All played out on the large, colorful canvas of Eastern Kentucky.

Coldplay – Kaleidoscope CDEP/12”+MP3 (Parlophone)
This new EP features a live version of Coldplay’s hit collaboration with The Chainsmokers, “Something Just Like This,” recorded in Tokyo in April. It also includes “Miracles (Someone Special),” a collaboration with Detroit rapper Big Sean. Another new song, “A L I E N S,” was written with Brian Eno, and co-produced by Eno and Markus Dravs (Arcade Fire, Mumford & Sons, Kings Of Leon). [Limited blue colored vinyl pressing also available.]

Gal Costa ‎– Índia [Reissue/1973] CD/LP (Mr. Bongo)
Digitally remastered edition of this 1973 album housed in replica of the original gatefold including the cover that was banned by the Brazilian military government in 1973 during the brutal dictatorship. Índia is a post-Tropicalia masterpiece from one of the movements key figures and true legends of Brazilian music, Gal Costa. Features a stellar line up of musicians including Gilberto Gil, Arthur Verocai, Dominguinhos, and Tenorio Jr.

Dale Crover – The Fickle Finger Of Fate CD/LP (Joyful Noise)
Debut solo album from the enigmatic legend that is Dale Crover. Amongst his 30+ year career as one half of the essential Melvins roster, Crover has contributed to countless albums ranging from platinum-plated classics (ahem, Nirvana) to seminal cult LPs. Though consistently otherworldly, The Fickle Finger Of Fate is surprisingly approachable— dare we say, catchy. But even at its most anthemic, you won’t be able to shake the feeling that a sinister ambience is hovering just beneath the surface.

Dead Cross – Dead Cross CD/LP (Ipecac)
Dead Cross emerged out of a series of impractical schemes, fallen-through plans, and last-minute musical experimentation. Shows were scheduled before a single song was written, fans were formed before even one show was played. The chaos of its creation seems apt; after all, the band is comprised entirely of artists who have thrived playing tightly-coiled turmoil – intelligent dissonance disguised as disorder. Consisting of Dave Lombardo, Justin Pearson, Michael Crain, and Mike Patton, the impressive, expansive, and eclectic list of prior bands collectively played in would be enough to ensure the unyielding ferocity of the music… but a resume isn’t necessary, here. Dead Cross stands on its own, speaks volumes with its multilayered evil-genius vocals, manic guitar riffs, and brutal rhythms. [Limited red colored vinyl pressing also available.]

[Read more…] about New Releases for August 4, 2017

CDs + Vinyl:

Abhorrent Decimation – The Pardoner CD (Prosthetic)
Abhorrent Decimation offer up their most inspired, charismatic and dominating material to date in the form of sophomore album The Pardoner. [Vinyl edition due August 25.]

Afterbirth – Time Traveler’s Dilemma CD/LP (Unique Leader)
New York-based death metal behemoths Afterbirth – featuring within its ranks members of Helmet, Artificial Brain, and Buckshot Facelift – release their brutalizing debut full-length.

Aminé – Good For You CD (Republic)
Debut album from the critically-acclaimed Portland, Oregon rapper.

Arthur Alexander – Arthur Alexander [Reissue/1972] CD (Omnivore)
When The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Humble Pie, Dusty Springfield, George Jones & Johnny Paycheck, Bob Dylan, the Bee Gees and countless others cover your songs, you must be on to something. Arthur Alexander was a songwriter and song stylist, whose career took off in the early 1960s—writing and recording hits like “Anna (Go To Him)” and “You Better Move On”—some of the earliest hits recorded at Rick Hall’s Fame Studios and featuring the famed Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section. After a short break at the end of the decade, he released a self-titled ‘comeback’ album in 1972. This reissue of that album is expanded with six bonus tracks—two previously unissued. Arthur Alexander was produced by Muscle Shoals bassist Tommy Gogbill, and include a version of “Burning Love”—covered by Elvis Presley shortly after the album’s release. As Barry Hansen (better known to most as Dr. Demento) wrote in the original notes, “Arthur is especially proud of the variety and versatility of his work on this album. All of it is strong medicine, and should be a fine antidote for a lot of bad scenes.”

Herb Alpert – Music Volume 1 CD (Herb Alpert)
Joyful, romantic sounds that stir the soul: that’s the overarching theme of the trumpeter and composers’ new album, Music Volume 1. Alpert’s passion for timeless melodies takes the listener on a voyage that spans genres and generations with surprising twists and turns. Music Volume 1 arrives with a brand-new song written by Alpert, the infectiously funky “Sugarfoot.” The euphoric album unfurls with tasteful twists on iconic songs, such as turntable scratches and electronic flourishes on “Unforgettable” and “Cheek To Cheek.” The inclusion of both “Michelle” and “Imagine” point to the near-endless inspiration that Alpert draws from the music of John Lennon and The Beatles. In his hands, “Michelle” starts with lush strings and effortlessly shifts into a swinging, Parisian-inspired jazz motif. Alpert’s lifelong love of Django Reinhardt led him to the classic “C’est Si Bon” and further takes the listener on a trip straight to France, the smell of tulips in the air, lovers walking hand in hand. Herb also puts a fresh, breezy spin on “Flamingo,” a song he first recorded for 1966’s chart-topper S.R.O.

Aphex Twin – Selected Ambient Works Volume II [Reissue/1994] 2xCD (Warp)
Aphex Twin – I Care Because You Do [Reissue/1995] CD/2xLP+MP3 (Warp)
Aphex Twin – Richard D. James Album [Reissue/1996] CD/LP+MP3 (Warp)
Aphex Twin – Come To Daddy [Reissue/1997] CDEP/12”+MP3 (Warp)
Aphex Twin – Windowlicker [Reissue/1999] CDEP/12”+MP3 (Warp)
Classic Aphex Twin back in print on CD and vinyl formats.

Arcade Fire – Everything Now CD/LP/Cassette (Columbia)
“Filing a review of Arcade Fire’s new album, one that will be aggregated with myriad others, is really antithetical to the whole point of it, i.e. that we’re so overwhelmed with thoughts, feelings, opinions – ‘content’ – in 2017, that the meaning of words is diminishing at a rate of terabytes-per-second. This palpable modern information overload has been niggling at the band for years, but Everything Now is their fullest expression of it yet. The torrent of content we absorb on a daily basis is a topic ripe for art that has been largely been under-explored in music thus far, but Arcade Fire don’t do it in somber and morbid fashion, Everything Now being their most upbeat, joyful album to date. It’s like they’ve chopped up a bunch of Abba tracks with this album, tenderized them, sprinkled them with glitter and reassembled them into something a little more subtle and insouciant. Arcade Fire’s fifth studio album doesn’t have the sprawling nature of The Suburbs or Reflektor nor the cacophonic intensity of Funeral, but the sequin-festooned, disco-ish Everything Now is every bit as good as these albums in its own right. Departures in sound are often unwelcome when we’re already so happy with where a beloved band are, but, in this case, their experiments are a complete success.” – The Independent. [Two covers are available: ‘Day Version’ and an exclusive indie-store-only ‘Night Version.’ Limited blue colored vinyl pressing also available.]

Bênní – I & II CD/LP (Goner)
Hailing from an H Class planet far across the cosmic highways, Bênní makes hi-NRG new age music.

Peter Bernstein – Signs Live CD (Smoke Session)
Jazz guitarist Peter Bernstein leads an all-star quartet featuring pianist Brad Mehldau, bassist Christian McBride, and drummer Gregory Hutchinson for a double set of music recorded live at Jazz at Lincoln Center in NYC.

Rex Brown – Smoke On This… CD/LP (Metal/E1)
Brown wields a six-string guitar as confidently as he wore the bass in Pantera and Down. His engaging voice crackles with easygoing spirit and truth-telling power. It’s a crunchy drawl that’s down-to-earth, grippingly relatable, charmingly welcoming, and gritty, somewhere between the achingly resonant spiritual shamanism of Tom Waits and the instantly recognizable everyman AM radio vibes of Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers.

Byzantine – The Cicada Tree CD/2xLP (Metal Blade)
Muscular yet lithe riffs and fluid leads play against gripping, dynamic and at times unpredictable rhythms, while rich melodies and lyrics that are both involved and intelligent wind their way through every track of The Cicada Tree. The groove metal unit has continued their steady evolution – the interplay between their members organic and natural, imbuing the record’s sixty-two-minute running time with a freshness and urgency.

[Read more…] about New Releases for July 28, 2017