The prolific Car Seat Headrest have returned but not in the guise one would have envisioned. Once again backed by Matador Records, the indie icon has now taken his studious approach to electronica on the band’s 12th album. For this isn’t solely a Car Seat Headrest record, rather it’s a collaboration with the bizarre 1TraitDanger.
The use of dynamics on This Is The History make it seem like a more deliberate and comprehensive album than their past releases. Vocals swell in and out of screams and quiet croons, while the guitars bring a sense of controlled chaos. The bass and drums keep a heavy pulse that often erupts into pulverizing bursts.
Silk Road, the band’s third LP, sees Toner far more polished than ever before. While a refinement in sound is expected after five separate records, the most striking thing about their songwriting this time around is not just its maturity but the amount of variety the band manages to pack into Silk Road’s brisk twenty minute runtime.
Led by one of the greatest lead singers of the past few years, they’ve built up a ferocious reputation for their live shows, ensuring this EP should become a defining companion piece to their recordings. Live at The Croxton flashes by in under ten minutes but not before the dynamism and raucousness of their energy is translated to the listener.
Melenas hail from Pamplona, Spain, a city known more for the running of the bulls than its music scene. After multiple releases on local labels, they have signed with US based label Trouble in Mind to release Dias Raros. If there is any justice, the band has created an album that should put their local scene on the map.
If last year’s debut LP delivered an anthology of twee-punk fairy tales, Parsnip’s new EP represents a burgeoning adolescence for the band as they test out new tones and take on larger themes. On Adding Up, the quartet buoys a scrappiness and more robust sound while still glimpsing the joy of their previous work.
If change is bad, Stuck makes the best of it. The record, front to back, is solid. It’s as dense as it is brief - the band wastes zero time plunging to exceptional depths in both arrangement and lyricism. Stuck’s debut contains the kind of post-punk precision and detail begging for repeated listens. Nothing’s overthought, but it’s all thought out.
This is esoteric and cerebral rock. The use of Agitprop (political propaganda, especially in art or literature) in the album’s title defines this as highbrow music, clearly, but Peel Dream Magazine’s quality ensures its never pretentious or fawning. It’s clear that Stevens thinks consciously and acutely about the meaning of his music.
Isobel Campbell emerges solo after a quiet fourteen years. Her latest album, There Is No Other… presents a bit of contemporary seriousness without overshadowing her familiar, dreamy sound. There Is No Other is different from anything we’ve already heard from Campbell. On this album emerges her new persona: a soft-spoken activist.
Philary is the solo project of Alex Molini (Pile, Jackal Onasis, Stove), who has cultivated an artful combination of heaviness and harmony on I Complain. Molini melds sludgy, bass-driven riffs with catchy and melodic vocal lines; it’s a winning combination, and yet it is performed here in a way we haven’t quite heard before.
Live records are often boring, but this King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard collection finds new ground, and finds an interesting cue. The songs of the record are stylistic landscapes, aesthetic insights that touch a style that embraces from psychedelic rock albums like Gumboot Soup to the stoner metal of Infest the Rats’ Nest.
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