Social Media Program Title Released This Week:

Mark Lanegan – Straight Songs Of Sorrow CD/LP (PIAS America)

When considering any great work of art, be it a painting, a novel, or a piece of music, it’s natural to wonder what might have inspired it. Mark Lanegan’s new album, Straight Songs Of Sorrow, features guest appearances from Greg Dulli, Warren Ellis, John Paul Jones, Ed Harcourt and more. These 15 songs are inspired his life story, as documented in his new memoir, Sing Backwards And Weep. The book is a brutal, nerve-shredding read, thanks to Lanegan’s unsparing candor in recounting a journey from troubled youth in eastern Washington, through his drug-stained existence amid the ’90s Seattle rock scene, to an unlikely salvation at the dawn of the 21st century. There’s death and tragedy, yet also humor and hope, thanks to the tenacity which impels its host, even at his lowest moments. Today, Lanegan is a renowned songwriter and a much-coveted collaborator, as adept at electronica as with rock, constantly honing his indomitable voice: an asphalt-laced linctus for the soul. While the memoir documents a struggle to find peace with himself, his album emphasizes the extent to which he came to realize that music is his life. [Limited indie-store exclusive clear vinyl pressing also available.]

CDs + Vinyl:

Bridget Kearney/Benjamin Lazar Davis – Still Flying CD (Verve)

Minimally equipped with a guitar, recording console and a tiny toy keyboard, longtime friends Benjamin Lazar Davis and Lake Street Dive’s Bridget Kearney trekked to West Africa and struck up a collaboration with Stevo Atambire, legendary Ghanaian musician/master of the kologo. The duo’s full-length debut, Still Flying, features 11insightfully crafted songs, reimagining traditional gyil parts and drum patterns in the context of their own graceful collision of folk and pop and indie-rock.

Axel Rudi Pell – Sign Of The Times CD/LP (Steamhammer)

The 18th album from metal legend Axel Rudi Pell. Line up: Johnny Gioeli (Hardline,), Ferdy Doernberg (Rough Silk, Uli Jon Roth, Therion), Volker Krawczak (Steeler), Bobby Rondinelli (Rainbow, Black Sabbath, Blue Öyster Cult).

[Read more…] about New Releases for May 8, 2020

Social Media Program Titles Released This Week:

Chicano Batman – Invisible People LP (ATO)

The L.A.-based quartet made up of Eduardo Arenas, Carlos Arevalo, Bardo Martinez and Gabriel Villa, follow-up the critically acclaimed breakthrough Freedom Is Free with their most sonically varied and cohesive album to date. Mixed by Grammy-winning engineer Shawn Everett (Beck, Alabama Shakes) the 12-song set accentuates the group’s high-spirited synthesis of Tropicalia, west coast psychedelia and late-’60s/early-’70s soul. [CD edition due May 29.]

Diet Cig – Do You Wonder About Me? CD/LP (Frenchkiss)

They’ve been compared to tornadoes, firecrackers, and lightning storms, and described as genuine, unapologetic, and down-to-earth. And now Alex Luciano and Noah Bowman of gutsy rock duo Diet Cig are back with their sophomore full-length, Do You Wonder About Me?, the follow-up to 2017’s Swear I’m Good At This. The new record marks a more intentional, self-assured Diet Cig; not only in Luciano’s radically intimate, acerbic lyrics, but in the duo’s sound as well. [Limited colored vinyl pressing also available.]

CDs + Vinyl:

Æther Realm – Redneck Vikings From Hell CD/LP (Napalm)

North Carolina’s Aether Realm reach melodic death metal maestro status with their latest full-length offering.

American Aquarium – Lamentations CD (New West)

[Read more…] about New Releases for May 1, 2020

Social Media Program Titles Released This Week:

Brendan Benson – Dear Life CD/LP (Third Man)

Benson finds himself in an enviable spot as he enters the third decade of a remarkably creative, consistently idiosyncratic career – an accomplished frontman, musician, songwriter, producer, band member, husband, and dad. Benson’s seventh solo album, and first new LP in almost seven years, Dear Life is this consummate polymath’s most inventive and upbeat work thus far, an 11- track song cycle about life, love, family, fatherhood, and the pure joy of making music. The album sees the Michigan-born, Nashville-based artist – and co-founder, with Jack White, of The Raconteurs – reveling in a more modernist approach than ever before, fueled by a heady brew of cannabis, hip-hop, and a newly discovered interest in software drum programming.

Other Lives – For Their Love CD/LP (ATO)

Other Lives, the Oklahoma-bred outfit fronted by Jesse Tabish, return with the long-awaited follow-up to 2015’s Rituals. For Their Love is a 10-track collection with a nod to the past while progressing positively towards the future. “The album is a record reflecting human feeling in the current state of affairs – economy and politics on the individual, while the latter still has to deal with the basic struggles of finding meaning of their existence,” says Tabish. The resultant tracks show the band “trying to capture the vibe of something altogether more instant. I was adamant there would no tricks and nothing to obscure me which I had been doing psychologically and musically,” says Tabish. Joined again by drummer Danny Reisch, who played on Rituals, the band is bolstered by an array of musicians featuring strings, brass and percussion, as well as Kim Tabish and Onstott contributing choral-style backing vocals reinforcing the overall cinematic feel that permeates the album. [Limited clear vinyl pressing also available.]

Lucinda Williams – Good Souls Better Angels CD/2xLP (Highway 20)

Three-time Grammy Award winner Lucinda Williams unabashedly takes on some of the human, social and political issues of our day with her boldest and most direct album to date, Good Souls Better Angels. During the course of her celebrated four-decade, pioneering career Williams has never rested on her laurels as she continues to push herself as a songwriter. On Good Souls Better Angels, she has much she needs to get out.

[Read more…] about New Releases for April 24, 2020