CDs + Vinyl:

The Allman Brothers Band – Live From A&R Studios: New York, August 26, 1971 CD (Allman Brothers Band Recording Company)

Live From A&R Studios was initially a radio broadcast that originally aired on WPLJ. This set features the band steamrolling through a set of songs including “Statesboro Blues,” “Trouble No More,” “One Way Out,” “In Memory Of Elizabeth Reed” and “Hot ‘lanta.”

Audacity – Hyper Vessels CD/LP+MP3 (Suicide Squeeze)

From the opening bedlam of barnburner “Counting The Days,” Audacity demonstrate that while their songwriting has become more nuanced, their delivery has gotten more savagely precise. With recording duties handled by longtime friend and tour-mate Ty Segall, Audacity sound like they’ve finally found someone who can capture the frenetic drive of a song like “Hypo,” the off-kilter hook of “Riot Train,” the undeniable melodic appeal of “Fire,” and the cowpunk influence of “Previous Cast.” It can be tricky to juggle the bubblegum with the piss-and-vinegar, but it’s a duality Audacity embraces.

Autolux – Pussy’s Dead CD/LP+MP3 (30^th Century Records/Columbia)

Experimental pop outfit Autolux releases their new LP via Danger Mouse’s 30th Century Records. “For those of us who like our shoegaze spiked with noise, menace, stylistic experimentation, and jarring dynamic shifts, there are few greater sonic pleasures than Autolux. The only trouble is that the Los Angeles trio has eked out just two full-length albums since forming in 2001, the last of which, Transit Transit, is approaching its sixth birthday. Devotees swooned when principal member Greg Edwards revived his criminally under-appreciated prior band Failure in recent years, but worried that such a move would delay fresh Autolux music even longer. Thankfully, with the help of producer Boots, best known for his work on Beyoncé’s 2013 self-titled album, the group has wrapped work on the awesomely named new LP Pussy’s Dead.” — Noisey

Banquet – Jupiter Rose CD/LP (Heavy Psych Sounds)

The debut album by San Francisco quartet Banquet, part of the California scene that also includes bands such as Earthless, Hot Lunch, Wild Eyes, Joy, and Loom. This is the perfect soundtrack for a biker living the dream coast to coast; a musical trip on the road. Retro ’70s-style fuzzy psych rock with ripping twin lead guitars, howling vocals, and a pulverizing rhythm section. For fans of: Blue Cheer, MC5, Jefferson Airplane, Kadavar, Blues Pills. (Limited violet color vinyl also available.)

Matthew Barber & Jill Barber – The Family Album CD (Outside Music)

Channeling a vintage spirit while remaining thoroughly contemporary, Jill Barber has carved out a unique niche in the Canadian music landscape with her distinct voice and repertoire rarely confined to any one genre. She returns to Banff with her brother Matthew Barber, a Toronto-based troubadour known for his soul-searching ballads and clever hooks. His latest release, Big Romance was nominated for a Juno last year. The Family Album is a collection of songs written by the renowned Canadian siblings and songs by the likes of Neil Young, Leonard Cohen, Ian Tyson and more. Vinyl version due April 29.

[Read more…] about New Releases for April 1, 2016 

CDs + Vinyl:

2 Chainz – Collegrove CD (Def Jam)

2 Chainz prohibitively collaborated with a fellow rapper Lil Wayne on his new album, Collegrove, even though it is credited by 2 Chainz as a solo album through Def Jam. The album includes productions from Mike Will Made It, TM88, Infamous, Zaytoven, Lil C, Metro Boomin, Ben Billion$, and London on da Track, among others.

Ahtme – Demonization CD/LP (Unique Leader)

Kansas City technical death metal strategists, Ahtme, formerly known as The Roman Holiday, are the latest addition to Unique Leader Records’ expanding roster of brutality.

American Head Charge – Tango Umbrella CD (Napalm)

New album from the Minneapolis-based heavy metal band.

Amon Amarth – Jomsviking CD/2xLP (Metal Blade)

Jomsviking is Amon Amarth’s tenth album and first concept record which tells a tragic tale of love and revenge, backed by the Swedish band’s trademark melodic, anthemic metal, which features special guest session drummer Tobias Gustafsson (Vomitory). The epic original story is set in the world of the Jomsvikings, the legendary order of mercenary Vikings. As frontman Johan Hegg explains: “The Jomsvikings were a shadowy and legendary sect of Viking mercenaries, as shrouded in myth now as they were when they fought across Europe and the Middle East. Ruthless and deadly warriors who fought for the highest bidder, their code was simple: Show no fear. Never retreat. Defend your brothers, and when called upon, avenge their deaths. I felt we were finally ready to use their story as the jumping off point for an Amon Amarth album.” (CD is available in Regular and Deluxe editions. Deluxe digibook edition includes one bonus track plus 24-page, full-color bound booklet.)

Asking Alexandria – The Black CD (Sumerian)

Fourth studio album from the British metalcore band.

Eric Bachmann – Eric Bachmann CD/LP+MP3 (Merge)

Twenty-five years after Archers Of Loaf broke onto Chapel Hill, North Carolina’s vital indie scene, frontman Eric Bachmann is recording the rawest, most honest work of his career under his own name. The release of Eric Bachmann marks the end of his post-Archers solo project Crooked Fingers, and the beginning of a candid new sound. “To me, the ’90s were for the Archers… The 2000s were for Crooked Fingers,” says Bachmann. “I feel like now—in 2015, 2016—it’s time to metamorphose. When you do this for a long time, you feel a strong pull to reinvent things from time to time, or at least to reconfigure them. There is resistance, of course, from many places to remain the same. But after a while the dam breaks, and the compulsion to change becomes overwhelming. You just have to do it or you sort of feel like you’re not being true to yourself.”

Dave Barnes – Carry On, San Vicente CD (50 Year Plan)

Released last week. “While Dave Barnes may be best known at the guy who wrote Blake Shelton’s #1 ‘God Gave Me You,’ the singer/songwriter [has released] his ninth studio album Carry On, San Vincente. The album will take Barnes in a musically different direction. ‘This album, with its sonic direction, is a project I have always wanted to make,’ said Barnes. ‘From start to finish it’s a nod to some of the greatest artists of all time in my opinion, like Fleetwood Mac, The Eagles, Crosby Still & Nash, etc. We created an alum that was so fun to make and will really translate live so we are excited to get out on the road and play it for the fans.’” – Nashville Gab

Bayonne – Primitives CD/LP (Mom + Pop Music)

“Roger Sellers is a lot of things. He’s a minimalist composer with a knack for making hypnotic, enveloping songs from a few repeated musical phrases. He’s a gifted musician who is mostly self-taught, having abandoned formal study because it was draining the life from his work. He’s a self-described disciple of Phil Collins. What he is not, however — despite multiple press reports to the contrary — is a DJ. Primitives, Sellers’ debut as Bayonne, is a rich, complex work, the kind with no clear rock parallel. In its winding, maze-like structures are hints of both Steve Reich and Owen Pallett, each instrument working a single melodic pattern over and over and over, as Sellers threads his soft, reedy voice between them.” — Ghettoblaster

Beastmaker – Luses Naturae CD (Rise Above)

Beastmaker hails from the unlikely locale of Fresno, CA. Sweating profusely in a parched no man’s land about 3 ½ half-hours northeast of Los Angeles, the city isn’t exactly a cultural mecca—and yet it’s the birthplace of Hollywood outsiders and weirdos like Sid Haig, Slim Pickens and director Sam Peckinpah. Still, it suffers from an unsurprising dearth of musicians interested in heavy rock. Bleak and burly overtones of Sabbath and Witchfinder General ring through Lusus Naturae like echoes from a haunted past. Slow-rolling bruisers “Eyes Are Watching,” “Arachne” and “It” set the tone of doom and despair with nods to heavy ’70s classics, cult horror flicks and the inimitable work of one Mr. Glenn Anzalone. “When it comes to genre, I think of us as a much slower version of the Misfits or Danzig, but I’ve come to love the word ‘doom’ whether or not it really relates to us,” vocalist/guitarist Trevor Church offers. “It just feels like home.” Vinyl edition due May 6.

Birdy – Beautiful Lies CD (Atlantic)

English singer/songwriter Jasmine van den Bogaerde, who goes by the stage name Birdy, was born in 1996 in Lymington, Hampshire. Precocious from the very start, Bogaerde began composing her own songs at the age of seven and in the coming years frequently posted her music and performances on YouTube. By the time she was 14, Birdy had signed a publishing contract with Warner Chappell. In early 2011, she independently released her first single, a cover of American indie rock outfit Bon Iver’s “Skinny Love,” which peaked at number 17 on the UK pop charts. Her self-titled full-length debut arrived in November of that year and was a huge success, particularly in Australia, Belgium, Holland, and France. Fire Within, the follow-up to her debut, presented a new phase in Bogaerde’s development, displaying her evolving songwriting talent. Her third album, Beautiful Lies, was produced by collaborators including Jim Abbiss (Arctic Monkeys/Adele) and Craig Silvey (Arcade Fire/Florence And The Machine).

Blackbear + The Surf Bums – Retrospective CD (Quality Time)

Nashville art-pop band active from 2011-2014, known for basement shows and DIY attitude. “You mean there’s a Nashville band making Smiths-influenced indie pop? Could this week get any better?”—USA Today

Blood Ceremony – Lord Of Misrule CD/LP (Rise Above)

“In a tradition that dates back to Late Antiquity, the Lord Of Misrule or “Abbot Of Unreason” was the doomed figure elected to preside over the Feast Of Fools, an annual Saturnalian bacchanalia in which masters became servants and servants masters, while drunken revelry and strange entertainments pervaded Britain and parts of mainland Europe for 30 days. At the end of the month’s festivities, the Lord Of Misrule’s throat was cut in sacrifice to Saturn. Taking its title from this fascinating slice of religious history, Blood Ceremony’s fourth album evokes pagan rites and the bizarre mystical underbelly of rural Britain. Embracing the psychedelic and progressive in their indelible songcraft, guitarist Sean Kennedy, bassist Lucas Gadke, drummer Michael Carrillo and triple threat vocalist/flautist/organist Alia O’Brien have created what Kennedy calls “a very English album,” despite the band’s very Canadian heritage. Recorded to analogue tape with producer Liam Watson at Toe Rag Studios in London, Lord Of Misrule possesses a timeless quality within the rock epoch: It could stand alongside a Shocking Blue or Deep Purple record as easily as it will take its place among 2016’s finest albums” – BraveWords. Vinyl version due April 22.

The Body & Full Of Hell – One Day You Will Ache Like I Ache CD (Neurot)

Since their inception in 1999, massively prolific Arkansas band The Body has refined an uncategorized and unmatched sound. The duo writes and acts as one—a deafening wail against a failing species. Full Of Hell was formed in 2009 in Ocean City, Maryland. With a similar ethos, the band is prolific and relentless, ever challenging themselves, channeling influences from across the spectrum of extreme music into a nihilistic wall of oppressive sound. One Day You Will Ache Like I Ache is the debut collaborative work by these two likeminded artists.

Joe Bonamassa – Blues Of Desperation CD/2xLP (J&R Adventures)

Blues Of Desperation is Bonamassa’s most powerfully diverse and boldly realized album yet, with the material ranging from the gutsy, gritty blues call to arms of “This Train” (Joe’s guitar is set to rude throughout) to the elegant yet emotionally shattering ballad “What I’ve Known For A Very Long Time” to the soul-nourishing, acoustic-based Americana of “The Valley Runs Low,” on which Bonamassa’s voice rises up majestically to meet Barnes, McRae and Tippins in gospel-like rapture. And then there’s the bleary, tequila-soaked “Drive,” dripping with the kind of raw, wicked and unsettling sensuality that could make David Lynch green with envy.

Matthew Bourne – moogmemory CD/LP+CD (Leaf)

moogmemory is the second solo studio album by English improvising pianist and synthesizer player Matthew Bourne. “[moogmemory] seems to come closer to the lineage of synthesizer innovators like Raymond Scott rather than most techno or ambient artists, even if there’s a relaxed, meditative feel to a lot of these pieces, and it showcase’s Bourne’s skill for exploring the vast capabilities of his instrument.” – AlMusic

Brian Bromberg – Full Circle CD (Artistry Music)

Brian Bromberg indeed completes a full circle here on his new recording, meaning, he started his musical career on the drums and now returns to sit behind the kit. Guests include Alex Acuna, Charlie Bishirat, Bob Sheppard, Mitch Forman, Arturo Sandoval, Lee Thornburg, Kirk Whalum plus more.

Bronze – Live In San Francisco CD/LP+MP3 (Castle Face)

Ninth edition of Castle Face’s Live In San Francisco series. “For nine years they have been slowly simmering in a pot. For nine years I have been seeing them usurp every bill they have been on. I’ve never seen a bad Bronze show… they range from smiling and hypnotized dancing crowds to a man getting violated and urinated on at a yuppie bar (everyone still smiling). Always the entertainers, always drunk with mad skills; with dashes of John Carpenter, Silver Apples, Liquid Liquid, Birthday Party, Harold Grosskopf, Klaus Schultze, Cluster, and Brian Ferry with a field recorder taped to his tux jacket. Ultra bottom heavy dance beats à la Brian Hock (shirt off / shirt on, it’s all good to me), super hand-wringing oscillations home brewed by Miles Friction and the ever-great Robert Spector delivering homilies from beyond the dimensional wall.” – John Dwyer

[Read more…] about New Releases for March 25, 2016