CDs + Vinyl:
50 Cent – Best Of CD (Aftermath)
18 of 50’s biggest songs. [Vinyl edition due April 7.]
Trace Adkins – Something’s Going On CD (Wheelhouse)
It’s been four years since Adkins’ last studio album Love Will… released in 2013, which debuted in the top ten on Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart, and fans have eagerly awaited this follow-up ever since. Some of Nashville’s favorite and most respected songwriters contributed to the range and inspiration of Something’s Going On, boasting credits such as Tyler Farr, Craig Campbell and Shane McAnally to name a few.
Arch Enemy – As The Stages Burn CD+DVD/2xLP+DVD (Century Media)
New live set of Swedish melodic death metal band recorded last summer at the Wacken Open Air Festival in Germany. [Silver color vinyl pressing also available.]
The Artificials – Heart CD (Tragic Hero)
With a unique use of polyrhythms and odd time signatures, The Artificials will take you on somewhat of a mathematical journey of controlled chaos.
Basement – Promise Everything [Deluxe Edition] CD (Fueled By Ramen)
This deluxe reissue of Basement’s critically adored album includes remixed/remastered versions of the original release’s ten songs and four bonus tracks: a cover of The Cardigan’s “My Favourite Game,” acoustic versions of “Aquasun,” “Blinded Bye,” and the acoustic track “Cloud,” which originally appeared on a limited run 7”. Hailing from Ipswich, Britain’s Basement make muscular, lyrical noise-rock influenced by a handful of ’90s American guitar bands from Dinosaur Jr. to Braid. Promise Everything builds upon previous album Colourmeinkindness’ (2012) guitar-heavy emotionality with tracks that trade hardcore punk edginess for soaring melodicism, and white noise for nuanced slabs of harmonic fuzz. Tracks like the lead-off “Brother’s Keeper” and “Lose Your Grip” bring to mind a mix of bands like Sebadoh and Mudhoney. Part of what makes Basement’s sound so appealing is lead vocalist Andrew Fisher, who surfs the top of his bandmates guitar tsunami with an impassioned croon. It’s just that perfect combination of sludgy, distorted noise and Fisher’s glassy vocal warmth that helps make cuts like “Aquasun” and “For You The Moon” immediately infectious, lovelorn anthems. [Vinyl edition due May 12.]
Bereft – Lands CD/LP (Prosthetic)
The Madison, WI atmospheric doom metal outfit makes their Prosthetic Records debut.
Manford Best – Come Go With Me [Reissue/1978] CD/LP (PMG)
Reissue of the chirpy, calypso-influenced debut solo album from Manford Best (of Super Wings).
The Beta Yama Group – Free Love [Reissue/1980] CD/LP (PMG)
Nigerian musicians Nash Dodoo, Charlie Cuul and Jonas Caulley put out Free Love after releasing an album of face-melting gospel boogie as the BML Chapels in 1980. The album is, as Peter Moore puts is, “a belated love letter to San Francisco’s Summer of Love,” and, “a small slice of Haight-Ashbury transported to the Polygram Studios in Lagos.”
Eric Bibb – Migration Blues CD (Stony Plain Music)
Mainly composed of new tunes, Migration Blues includes covers of Bob Dylan’s “Masters Of War” and Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land.” An arrangement of the traditional “Mornin’ Train,” closes the opus.
Steve Black – Happy Birthday To ‘U’ [Reissue/1983] CD/LP (PMG)
An irresistible blend of highlife, Afro beat, and Afro funk.
Body Count – Bloodlust CD/LP (Century Media)
New album from the metal band fronted by hip-hop legend, actor and director Ice-T.
Brother Firetribe – Sunbound CD/LP (Spinefarm)
An AOR band from Finland, Brother Firetribe is influenced by the glory days of such stadium rock giants as Journey and Van Halen coupled with the glam of such acts as Skid Row. “Infectious, contagious, feel good hook laden melodic rock.”
Bill Brovold & Jamie Saft – Serenity Knolls CD/2xLP (RareNoise)
An intimate duo project with guitarist Bill Brovold, a former member of such New York no-wave bands as the Rhys Chatham Ensemble, the East Village Orchestra and the Zen Vikings, Serenity Knolls features Saft alternating between playing dobro and lap steel on a set of 12 ambient type tunes with a distinctive heartland undercurrent to them. An accomplished keyboardist-composer who has been widely acknowledged for his work with various John Zorn projects, including The Dreamers, Electric Masada and Moonchild, the Queens native and current resident of Kingston in upstate New York has nonetheless has maintained a longstanding relationship with the guitar.
Richard Buckner – Impasse [Reissue/2002] CD/LP+MP3 (Merge)
The words are entrancingly cryptic, as if their simplicity conceals unfathomable depths. The music is sparse, almost whispered at times, like a secret. The title gives everything away, though. During the gestation of his 2002 album Impasse, Richard Buckner was stuck. But, with perseverance, what began as one of his most troubled recording attempts ended as one of his best and most pivotal—a capstone for his wayfaring early period before he planted roots with Merge.
Chaz Bundick Meets The Mattson 2 – Star Stuff CD/LP+MP3 (Company)
World-renowned composer/producer extraordinaire Chaz Bundick (Toro Y Moi, Les Sins) has teamed up with the psychedelic-jazz grooves of The Mattson 2 for an album that unifies a trio’s creativity into a refreshing project of unhinged sonic originality. Grounding Star Stuff are break-beats, synthesizers, acoustic strums, and guitar fuzz reminiscent of David Axelrod and Arthur Verocai. With cosmic structures, timeless influences, rich harmonies, and melodic interplays, the trio brings an intergalactic edge to an album worthy of repeated visits. [Limited color vinyl pressing also available.]
The Buttertones – Gravedigging CD/LP+MP3 (Innovative Leisure)
The Buttertones’ Gravedigging is more a movie waiting to happen than an album—or a soundtrack just waiting to inspire a movie, with scene after scene of action, tension and release set to a sound that takes everything good and true about American music before the Beatles prettied it up (surf, sweet soul, the boss saxophone-overdrive garage of the Northwest wailers like the Sonics) and matches it to punk energy, post-punk precision and the kind of personality that blows the circuit-breakers at a backyard party.
