We’re already at my top 10 singles of 2020. Time’s already flying by!
#10: Liam Kazar – “Shoes Too Tight”
This came out of nowhere and turned out to be one of the catchiest, sharpest singles I heard all year. Mr. Kazar can’t come out with a full-length album soon enough for my liking. This song shows a level of playful artistry sorely lacking in a lot of music right now.
#9: Matt Karmil – “210”
This house track drops like an empty Red Bull can onto a dance floor full of sweaty, sexy people. I’m not sure I can sum it up better than that.
#8: Protomartyr – “Processed By the Boys”
This track from Ultimate Success Today is a great example of what Protomartyr do so well – blending mysterious lyrics and vocals with rock chops that border on psychedelia.
#7: Heartless Bastards – “Revolution”
This surprise single came out of Erika Wennerstrom being frustrated with damn well everything in 2020. She summed up how we all felt and gave us a rallying cry for 2021.
#6: Teenager – “Good Time”
Listening to this is some of the best music fun I had all year. It was stuck in my head for days after first hearing it. It’s a song about how love is fleeting to a sweet groove that is nothing short of smile-inducing.
Only five left to go! Who makes it to the top? Come back tomorrow to learn!
Today, shame present a new single, “Snow Day,” off of their long-anticipated new album, Drunk Tank Pink, out January 15th on Dead Oceans. It follows previously released singles “Water in the Well” and “Alphabet.” Alongside, the band share a visualiser featuring drone footage shot in the Scottish Borders, where the band wrote Drunk Tank Pink. Additionally, shame announce a live broadcast from Rough Trade in London on January 14th.
The rolling, snow-covered hills make a befitting backdrop for the atmospheric build of “Snow Day,” with frontman Charlie Steen’s sombre and introspective opening words making way for the storming twists and turns that arrive throughout. The song is a standout on the record, carried by the rhythmic, unrelenting drumming from Charlie Forbes, with chiming guitars which dictate the mood changes and push and pull the song into different directions. Steen’s lyrics dovetail with the music all the while; from its reflective opening to the snarl of its highest points. Undoubtedly it’s the band’s most musically ambitious release to date; a symphony in a song. Charlie Steen explains: “A lot of this album focuses on the subconscious and dreams, this song being the pivotal moment of these themes. A song about love that is lost and the comfort and displeasure that comes after you close your eyes, fall into sleep, and are forced to confront yourself.” WATCH SHAME’S VISUALIZER FOR “SNOW DAY” “Snow Day,” like the rest of the tracks making up Drunk Tank Pink, marks a determined leap forward for shame. The tracks began life as the band readjusted to a new normal back home having spent much of their adult life on tour, with themes spanning disintegrating relationships, the loss of the sense of self and identity crises. The result is an enormous expansion of shame’s sonic arsenal. WATCH SHAME’S VIDEO FOR “WATER IN THE WELL”
An apparition you can’t explain is cutting through the viscous mist in your brain. The contents of your pockets are suddenly unfamiliar. That sound again –
This year of super wolf moon brought A Visitation and the message, “You’ll Get Eaten, Too.”Now, in the earthly chaos of total celestial blackout, one body containing two galaxies is once more among us…
This is no miscount – this is the bestial duo, the two headed dawg, the Superwolves: Matt Sweeney and Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, talking directly to our face. They know no fear, only curiosity. “Make Worry For Me” is manifesto, and we can only hope to learn from it. To grow from it. For limbs to extend, beneath its blue, electric sky. To become Super, like the Superwolves.
The gauntlet is thrown. You’re dancing with the wolf again. Brooding and grooving upon their prey. Succumb to their ritual. Move your ass. Sing their song. Fight. Or die.
“Make Worry For Me” credits: lyrics and vocals by Will Oldham music composed by Matt Sweeney vocal harmonies, electric and bass guitars by Matt Sweeney drums by Pete Townsend keys by Mike Rojas recorded by David Ferguson mixed by Sean Sullivan
Keep your mind open.
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[Thanks to Jessica and Jacob at Pitch Perfect PR.]
I have no idea if that weird, prickly pear-headed humanoid holding what appears to be either a cruller or a tower of onion rings is the “Mutilator” mentioned in the title of Thee Oh Sees‘ 2015 album Mutilator Defeated at Last or the created that is about to defeated Mutilator on some sort of rope bridge or walkway with a slime-covered railing. I do know, however, that it rocks beginning to end and has some of their biggest hits.
The loopy bass of Tim Hellman (his first album with the band) gets things off to a great start on “Web” – the sticky, funky opener that includes wild drumming from Nick Murray (also his first foray with the band) and John Dwyer‘s usual guitar work that shifts from frenetic to psychedelic as fast as Barry Allen turning a corner. “Withered Hand” starts out with the sounds of wind rattling through a haunted house and Murray’s snare drum sounding like a hissing adder before Dwyer unloads his guitar riffs like a cauldron of hot oil shot from a trebuchet.
“Poor Queen” is one of Oh Sees‘ / O Sees‘ / OCS‘ tunes that’s almost a shoegaze track. Dwyer’s vocals have just enough reverb and the guitar and synths blend together like incense and tea. “Turned Out Light” has a great garage rock swing to it that is pure fun to hear and probably to play for Dwyer and his crew.
“Lupine Ossuary” is a wild ride that comes at you from so many angles that it’s like being in the middle of a mosh pit that has a live hornet’s nest being kicked around on the floor, but the hornets are as drunk, high, or geared up as everyone else. “Sticky Hulks” is almost seven minutes of psychedelia with Dwyer’s guitar sometimes sounding like sonar pings and his electric organ work sounding like church music. “Holy Smoke” is (Dare I say it?) a pretty song. Dwyer’s acoustic guitar picking and strumming mixes well with Murray’s simple beats, Hellman’s bass line walk, and Dwyer’s complimentary synths.
“Rogue Planet” rolls and tumbles like its namesake charging through space toward its destructive meeting with another celestial body. The closer, “Palace Doctor,” sends us out on a psychedelic note with Murray’s drums slinking in the background with Dwyer’s vocals as the guitar and bass come forward like inquisitive ghosts.
Perhaps Mutilator was defeated by this album and we all need to thank Thee Oh Sees for saving us from an extra-dimensional threat by the power of their rock. I wouldn’t be surprised if that were the case. Their stuff can shake walls and reality, and this album certainly proves this true.
Keep your mind open.
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Today, shame announce their long-anticipated new album, Drunk Tank Pink, out January 15th on Dead Oceans. In conjunction, they present a new single, “Water in the Well,” with an accompanying video directed by Pedro Takahashi. There are moments on Drunk Tank Pink where you almost have to reach for the sleeve to check this is the same band who made 2018’s Songs Of Praise. Such is the jump shame have made from the riotous post-punk of their debut to the sprawling adventurism laid out in the bigger, bolder James Ford produced follow-up.
This creative leap, in part, was sparked by the band’s recent crash back down to earth, having spent their entire adult life on the road. It stems from their beginnings as wide-eyed teenagers, cutting their teeth in the pubs and small venues of South London, to becoming the most celebrated new band in Britain, catapulted by the success of their breakthrough debut album. Readjusting to a new normal back home with – for the first time since the band’s formation – no live shows on the horizon, frontman Charlie Steen attempted to party his way out of psychosis. An intense bout of waking fever-dreams convinced Steen that self medicating his demons wasn’t a very healthy plan of action and it was probably time to stop and take a look inward. “You become very aware of yourself and when all of the music stops, you’re left with the silence,” reflects Steen. “And that silence is a lot of what this record is about.”
In a small room painted in a shade of pink used to calm down drunk tank inmates, Steen cocooned himself away to reflect and write. In the room dubbed “the womb,” he addressed the psychological toll life in the band had taken on him. The disintegration of his relationship, the loss of a sense of self and the growing identity crisis both the band and an entire generation were feeling.“The common theme when I was catching up with my mates was this identity crisis everyone was having,” reflects Steen. “No one knows what the fuck is going on.” “It didn’t matter that we’d just come back off tour thinking, ‘How do we deal with reality!?’” agrees guitarist Sean Coyle-Smith. “I had mates that were working in a pub and they were also like, ‘How do I deal with reality!?’ Everyone was going through it.”
Coyle-Smith took a different tac to Steen and barricaded himself in his bedroom. Barely leaving the house and instead obsessively deconstructing his very approach to playing and making music, he picked apart the threads of the music he was devouring (Talking Heads, Nigerian High Life, the dry funk of ESG, Talk Talk…) and created work infused with panic and crackling intensity. “For this album I was so bored of playing guitar,” he recalls, “the thought of even playing it was mind-numbing. So I started to write and experiment in all these alternative tunings and not write or play in a conventional ‘rock’ way.”
The genius of Drunk Tank Pink is how Steen’s lyrical themes dovetail with the music. Previously released opener “Alphabet” dissects the premise of performance over a siren call of nervous, jerking guitars, its chorus thrown out like a beer bottle across a mosh pit. Nigel Hitter, meanwhile, turns the mundanity of routine into something spectacular via a disjointed jigsaw of syncopated rhythms and broken wristed punk funk. The result is an enormous expansion of shame’s sonic arsenal. WATCH SHAME’S VIDEO FOR “WATER IN THE WELL”
DRUNK PINK TANK TRACKLIST 1. Alphabet 2. Nigel Hitter 3. Born in Luton 4. March Day 5. Water in the Well 6. Snow Day 7. Human, for a Minute 8. Great Dog 9. 6/1 10. Harsh Degrees 11. Station Wagon
Clutch has released its new single “Passive Restraints” today. “Passive Restraints” originally appeared as the title track to the bands 2nd EP released in 1992. This newly recorded version is part of the Weathermaker Vault Series and features guest vocals by Randy Blythe from Lamb of God. Clutch and Blythe have collaborated on this track live for several years now, the last time at European festival appearances in the summer of 2019. The song can be streamed on Spotify at this location: https://orcd.co/passiverestraints and on the band’s official YouTube Channel: https://tinyurl.com/yy2575t7
The official video for the song was directed by David Brodsky (The Black Dahlia Murder, Papa Roach).
“Passive Restraints’ was one of the first Clutch songs I wrote lyrics to,” states frontman Neil Fallon. “It was a staple of Clutch sets for years but fell by the wayside as we wrote more and more songs over the years. When we toured with Lamb of God a few years back, Randy would often ask us to bring it back into rotation. We dragged our feet, and finally, we caved. And we were glad we did. The last time Clutch played Copenhell, Randy joined us on stage to perform the song. We decided to re-record it for the WM Vault Series and thought it was only fitting to have Randy join us.”
“When Clutch asked if I wanted to sing an older song with them during our 2016 tour together, I knew immediately which one I wanted to do- ‘Passive Restraints‘ adds Blythe. “We performed it in Milwaukee, then again a few years later at Copenhell Fest in Denmark, and I had a blast both times. I think they were a bit surprised I chose a song released in 1992, but I’ve been a fan for a long time. I’ve followed their development as a band since the early days and have enjoyed every album, but as a musician, I know sometimes it’s fun to dust off something you haven’t played in many years and see how it sounds. The song holds up to this day, and I was honored to sing on its re-release.”
The single “Passive Restraints” comes from the upcoming album “WeatherMaker Vault Series Vol. I” out on Friday November 27th.
CLUTCH:Neil Fallon – Vocals/Guitar / Tim Sult – Guitar / Dan Maines – Bass/ Jean-Paul Gaster – Drums/Percussion
For more information, check out the band’s website:www.pro-rock.com
I don’t know if there’s an award for Most Fitting Album Title of 2020, but Partner‘s new album, Never Give Up, might win it if there is. It seems that everyone has shouting this for the entire year. Everyone is fighting a battle. This has been true throughout all time, of course, but internal and external battles seem, and often are, magnified in this year no one will be sad to see leave.
Thanks heavens we have bands like Partner (Josée Caron, Lucy Niles, Simone TB) to recharge our batteries with massive riffs and songs about sex, rock and roll, and being comfortable in your own skin.
I love that they open Never Give Up with an introduction song – “Hello and Welcome,” which has Caron and Niles sharing vocals about how happy they are to be rocking off our collective socks. The breakdown on it is like stomping the gas pedal on a 1970 Plymouth Road Runner. “We’re Partner…We’re not foolin’ around,” Caron sings. Those riffs certainly aren’t. “Rock Is My Rock” is full of power chords and hand percussion s Caron and Niles sing about how rock and roll not only keeps them afloat through hard times, but how it can shake us out of the funk this crazy year has dropped on the world like an oppressive net. “I wouldn’t want to imagine a world without rock,” Niles sings. Who can argue with that?
Caron’s vocals take on a bluesy swagger on “The Pit,” a song about letting go of anything holding you down. “Honey,” a song about Caron’s guitar is, appropriately, full of big guitar riffs. “This guitar sounds like honey going down,” they sing, and they’re right. It does. “Big Gay Hands,” a favorite in their live sets, is a strutting, sweaty, sexy track about hotties and the hotties who love them.
“Good Place to Hide (at the Time)” reminds me a bit of Rush, who are known influences on Partner, with its echoing vocals, switching time signatures, and space-rock riffs. “Roller Coasters (Life Is One)” is a piano-first rock opera ballad about navigating through the madness of 2020 and the world in general. “At the heart of each day lies a brand new, scary, sweet surprise,” Caron sings.
“I couldn’t remember my postal code if I tried,” Partner sing on “Couldn’t Forget” – a peppy song about memory and self-deception with some country twang for good measure. Simone TB’s drum lick on “Here I Am World” is slick, reminding me a bit of the opening beats on Blondie‘s “Rapture.” Caron sings about grabbing “each scrap of joy” and Niles reminds us that “each day is a precious gift.” It sums up the theme of the album, and the best way to get through this nutty year, quite well. The record closes with the chugging, powerful “Crocodiles,” in which Partner warn us that many beasts (often ones self-created) lie in wait around us to catch us up in their maws if we let them.
Never Give Up is the metaphorical shot in the arm we all need right now and easily one of the most uplifting albums of the year.
Keep your mind open.
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Today, Japanese quartet CHAI are excited to share the official video for “Plastic Love,” their cover of Mariya Takeuchi’s 1984 city pop standard, which recently saw a resurgence of its own in 2018. “Plastic Love” stars the group as “tour guides” of their beloved Tokyo, taking you through the city’s many districts in this exuberant visual. CHAI says: “THIS IS TOKYO! Everyone has their own perception of Tokyo, but many, at times, would say it can be sort of gloomy, sort of dark. With our version of ‘Plastic Love,’ we wanted to show you what Tokyo looks like from our point of view. From Asakusa, to crepes in Harajuku, to the skyrise buildings and Tokyo Tower, to long night-time drives in Shibuya…we welcome you to our version of Tokyo! You also notice how we’re all wearing white? That’s because we are going to disrupt the gloomy Tokyo! We are the brightness amongst the darkness and we’ve come to illuminate! Just like Mariya Takeuchi did with this song in the 80’s, we’ve come to do this again with our version today!”
CHAI’s interpretation of the international cult hit is from their double A-side single, “Donuts Mind If I Do”/”Plastic Love,” out now on Sub Pop. “Donuts Mind If I Do”/“Plastic Love” double A-side single is available as a limited edition 7,” which is available to purchase now from Bandcamp (on orange or turquoise colored vinyl), and Sub Pop Mega Mart (on lime green vinyl). All three options while supplies last. The “Donuts Mind If I Do”/“Plastic Love” 7” single will be available worldwide (excl. Japan and Asia) with an estimated ship date in late November.
CHAI is a revolutionary four-piece, made up of miracle twins Mana and Kana, and the impeccable rhythm section of Yuuki and Yuna. Combining their powerhouse musical prowess with “pinkish punk” sensibilities, CHAI has managed to create a huge splash in the music scene in their homeland, Japan, and abroad. Now ready to build on their infectious sound and musical accolades, CHAI is gearing up with their new label to release even more new music into the world. WATCH THE VIDEO FOR “DONUTS MIND IF I DO”
Just in time to shake you out of your COVID-19 self-isolation funk, Fuzz (Charles Moothart, Ty Segall, and Chad Ubovich) are back with III – an album to make you look inward and shake you out of the trappings of everything outward.
“There is no greater sum than one,” Segall sings on opener “Returning” amid wild drum fills and enough, yes, guitar and bass fuzz to fill up an arena. A running theme throughout III is how unity often produces things greater than the individual can produce. Not that individual effort is worthless. Far from it. Sometimes individuals joined in a common cause (rock, in Fuzz‘s case) combine their powers for the greater good.
The funky and skronky “Nothing People” calls out rich elitists (“Nothing People have enough to eat, but they ain’t worth a dollar.”) with garage-metal swing. “Spit” has a bit of a Queens of the Stone Age feel to it with its strip club rhythm and gritty guitar. “Time Collapse” rolls along at a smoky pace and then drops doom metal riffs and lyrics (“Claim your throne in the black.”/ “You are forgotten by the one. After the light is gone, you are always alone. Your blood the only sun.”) on you.
“Mirror” calls out squares (“Freaks are breeding love in the gutter with another, burn the ceiling of house you live in with your mother.”) and slaps them with hyper-speed guitars and heavy drum fills. “Close Your Eyes” encourages us to let go of our illusions of there always being something better just over the next hill when we often have paradise in front of us. Segall sings, “You might think I’m crazy, and I don’t blame you, living like I don’t care. I just want you to come with me and see there’s nothing out there.” as the song drops into a sweet groove near the end.
“Blind to the Vines” starts off with space-rock guitars and then switches gears to almost southern-fried rock with its riffs. “End Returning” takes us down a rabbit hole that bores through psych and doom rock for almost eight minutes. It’s a trippy way to end a heavy record, but good psych and doom makes you do that (and the song doesn’t skimp on some punk madness either).
III is another solid record from Fuzz that shows three men operating at the height of their powers for one cause – to shred your speakers and awaken us out of our funks.
That’s the question that arose when I began listening to Screaming Females‘ second album, What If Someone Is Watching Their T.V.? for the first time. Let’s see if a trip through this blistering, wailing, shredding, and sometimes tender album can provide an answer.
“Theme Song” starts the album with Marissa Paternoster‘s guitar sounding like something you’d hear blasting from the Mach-5 as it whizzes by you. The song goes from post-punk to pure punk power by the end, which makes one think the album is going to be full of this same energy if the opening track is, after all, the theme song of the album. Lyrics such as “You are always talking and you never stop.” and “I am a victim of the general public.” certainly fit in with the theme of death by television.
That thought turns out to be correct, because “The Real Mothers” doesn’t let up on Paternoster’s vocal fury ((“The cost of killing is free.”), and “Humanity Arranged” doesn’t let up on Mike Abbatte‘s funky bass riffs. Drummer Jarrett Dougherty puts down some of his best chops on “Starve the Beat” – a track (about good and bad memories of youth) that has the great low key / heavy thrash swerve that Screaming Females do like no other band I know. Paternoster’s solo on it is one of her best.
“Little Anne,” a lovely song about love, lets us catch our breath, and makes us wonder if perhaps the answer to the album title’s question is that many will miss out on love right in front of them if they’re too busy with distractions. “Fun” is a song about moving on from death (of a loved one, or our own) with Abbatte and Dougherty swinging a great groove for over three straight minutes.
“Limbs” is the only song to mention television in it, and the lyrics “When you keep a fight, I pass your room at night, pinned to the brain, birthed the insane, set your TV live.” bring to mind images of Paternoster looking for some kind of solace while someone else is zoned out watching trash TV. The song has a slightly creepy vibe to it that makes it a standout.
“I will tear the heads off this culture,” Paternoster proclaims on “Pedro.” A bold statement in 2007, and even bolder now as both sides of the political aisle claim to be, or at least desire, to be doing just that. Paternoster’s guitar deftly moves from garage to metal to psychedelic, making it sound easy.
“If mother knows best, then mother knows why,” Paternoster sings on “Mothership,” a fast track that includes handclaps among Dougherty’s sharp drumming. “My Earth’s gone flat and the sun burns sour.” All of this is happening while we’re scrolling through Netflix and Amazon watchlists we’ve created but never view. The closer, “Boyfriend,” is one of Screaming Females‘ greatest punk-as-fuck tracks as Paternoster sings / screams what could well be a real conversation she had at age nineteen about her sexuality and Abbatte and Dougherty go for broke as sets the damn studio on fire screaming “While you sit on the fence I will burn in hell.” over and over.
What is someone is watching their TV? My guess is that they run the risk of missing the present world around them, which includes passion and compassion. Screaming Females were warning us thirteen years ago that we were drifting away from each other and toward our screens. They were right, but this album can still shake you out of it. Turn off your TV. Listen to this album instead.
