Just so nobody complains that we ignore Nickelback here – they released a new album this week. There! Alright? That’s all the space they get.
In other news, music that does not reduce a gag reflex was released this week – let’s check it out!
Andy Stott | Faith In Strangers
For a really long time Andy Stott was the type of guy you find haunting some wet basement club, tearing his murky dub music through the room. His last record, Luxury Problems kinda changed all that. People noticed the Manchester native as he elicited the help of his former piano teacher, Alison Skidmore, for help on vocals. This brought his music to a wider audience and all of a sudden his appeal was absolutely huge. Now we have Faith in Stangers and instead of running with the “mass-appeal” he garnered from the last record, he returned to what he does best – and people still love it! Funny what one hit can do for someones career.
Ariel Pink | pom pom
When it comes to guys recording at home during the 00’s, Ariel Pink may have been the most prolific. Pulling influences from Daniel Johnston, Guided By Voices, and R. Stevie Moore, he’d often combine his melodic instincts with his ability to obscure the whole thing with distortion. By the time the ’10’s came along and he debuted on 4AD with Before Today and 2012’s Mature Themes, he had became a sort of virtuoso when it came to studio recordings. Now, 2 years on, we have his newest LP pom pom which is all at once ornate, vulnerable, and wacky.
TV on the Radio | Seeds
Remember that old Shakespeare quote, “A rose by any other name would smell just as sweet”… or something like that? Well, I’m not calling TV on the Radio’s new LP Seeds Shakespeare or anything, but if there’s one thing the band has never been called, it’s a pop act. Without a doubt, this sounds just as sweet. This is the first album since the passing of their original bass player Gerard Smith, and this shift to a pop sound is very clear and even reportedly deliberate. Tunde Adebimpe and Kyp Malone’s voices and writing styles are front and center and it certainly shows what this band is capable of, even after such a tragic couple of months.
