Radiohead, arguably the biggest band in the world (and still one of the few pushing the envelope and daring to not be pigeonholed), have announced their as-yet untitled new album will be released on May 8th in digital formats and in physical formats on June 18th.
The band surprised everyone by erasing their entire Internet presence for two days and then returning with the new single “Burn the Witch.” Two days later they released the single “Daydreaming,” which has a video directed by film director Paul Thomas Anderson (for whom Radiohead guitarist Johnny Greenwood has scored multiple films).
Radiohead are playing multiple festival dates in the U.S. and around the world starting this summer. They always put on an excellent show, so don’t miss them if they’re near you.
Aussie legends Midnight Oil announced on May 4th that they are reuniting for a tour in 2017. In case you don’t know “the Oils” (as they are sometimes called) are one of Australia’s greatest bands and easily one of the most politically charged / Stick-it-to-the-Man bands of the last 30 years. Lead singer Peter Garrett even went into politics after the band split up to further their causes for Aboriginal Australians, economic equality, and environmental action.
They haven’t announced tour dates or locations yet, but this will be a must-see show. My wife and I have seen them twice, and both shows were excellent. We got to meet some of them after a show, and they were all good lads.
They’re offering a free download of a live version of “Forgotten Years” (one of the hits off the classic Blue Sky Mining album) through their website to celebrate the announcement, so grab it while you can.
In case you missed it, music titans Radioheaderased their Facebook, Twitter, website, and pretty much everything else they had on the Internet two days ago. They were gone. Fans were puzzled, but not entirely surprised as Radiohead have been Internet renegades for years. They were the first to release an album (In Rainbows) online and told fans they could pay whatever they wanted for it, even nothing at all if they liked.
Their website and Twitter content was often cryptic, and they’d go for long stretches without posting anything.
They came back yesterday with a new single and video – “Burn the Witch.” It’s a dissonant, almost frantic song with Thom Yorke’s usual mysterious lyrics. The video is also a tribute to the unsettling film The Wicker Man. Don’t bother with the Nicolas Cage version. Just don’t. Enjoy the original, this new song, and the upcoming album (whenever that is) instead.
Keep your mind open.
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Beck was eager to rock in 2005, as evidenced by the opening of his Guero album. “E-Pro” starts off with heavy guitar, stadium drums, and that funky ass white boy delivery of his that only he can pull off without sounding like a fool. I’m sure this was a hit back then, but why isn’t it still now? The breakdown on it alone is worth multiple spins.
“Que Onda Guero” is one of the funkiest tracks Beck had laid on us in years. It has a bit of that “Loser” feel, with Spanglish lyrics and references to things like Burger King crowns and Latino vegetable vendors. The beats from the Dust Brothers on it help, of course. You can’t go wrong there. They come back for “Girl,” on which Beck plays everything else and sings about his girl “with her cheap sunglasses walking crooked down the beach.”
“Missing” has Beck lamenting the loss of his girl. I don’t know if she’s the same one from the previous track, but he was heartbroken when he wrote it. You might not realize it at first due to the bossa nova beats and smooth groove, but can’t miss it with lyrics like “I prayed heaven today would bring its hammer down on me and pound you out of my head. I can’t think with you in it.”
I’m not sure which is funkier on “Black Tambourine” – Beck’s bass or the Dust Brothers’ beats. Money Mark’s organ work on “Earthquake Weather,” might beat both of them, however. The whole track is a great mix of 1970’s funk, trip hop, and acid jazz. “Hell Yes” is vintage Beck, with lots of quirky rapping, snappy electro-beats, and fun lyrics. I think, and hope, that it’s about a janitor who gets his groove on while cleaning floors in an office building and not giving a damn what anyone thinks.
“Broken Drum” is a lament to a lost friend, with nice lonely piano work by Beck. “Scarecrow” is a near-blues toe-tapper. “Go It Alone” is about Beck deciding he’s better off being a cool loner than getting entangled in a marriage that scares the hell out of him (and that’s Jack White on bass, by the way).
With all these songs about weird and doomed relationships, songs about death were inevitable. “Farewell Ride” is something from a dark southern swamp shack sung by someone with weathered skin and gnarled hands from fistfights and hard work. “I don’t see the face of kindness, I don’t hear the mission bells, I don’t smell the morning roses. All I see is two white horses in a line carrying me to my burial ground.” Good, heavy stuff right there.
“Rental Car” is about going as far as one can on borrowed time, and the closer, “Emergency Exit” is about someone coming to grips with death and feeling relief in knowing kindness and life will go on in their absence.
I seriously have no idea how I’ve avoided this album for eleven years. Guero would’ve been in my top 10 of 2005 if I’d heard it back then. Each track is good. There’s no filler here. Shame on me for missing it.
One of the things I love about The Heavy (Kelvin Swaby – vocals, Dan Taylor – guitar, Spencer Page – bass, Chris Ellul – drums) is how they come out of the gate gunning on their new album Hurt & the Merciless. “Since You’ve Been Gone” is a blazing hot track with wah-wah guitar, fat horns, and funky drumming. The Heavy don’t mess around, and we need more bands that ain’t got time for suckers. The album’s title sums up the theme of the record – every song is about nasty relationships or heartbreak.
The album’s title sums up the theme of the record – every song is about nasty relationships or heartbreak. “What Happened to the Love?” is a great example of their sound – dangerous rock with a bit of soul thrown in for good measure. “Not the One” is an anti-love song. It’s not against love, mind you, but Taylor (who wrote it) knows that getting into a relationship with the person mentioned will only bring heartbreak, so he begs them to stop the flirtations and amorous behavior that will only end in ruin. Taylor’s guitar and Page’s bass are extra funky on it.
Speaking of extra funky things, wait until you hear the horns on “The Apology.” They get a Latino / spaghetti western touch-up on “Nobody’s Hero.” “Miss California” brings the humor, with Taylor writing about a former beauty queen turned hellish bitch (“It took more than just a crucifix to keep that thing at bay.”). “Turn Up” brings back the big horns, and “A Ghost You Can’t Forget” swings hard, with Swaby channeling Howlin’ Wolf in his vocals as he sings about returning to haunt the woman who wronged him (“I’ll wipe that look from your face when I’m dancing upon your deathbed.”).
As a former bass player, I love Page’s riff on “The Last Confession.” It thumps along and drives the whole song, really. “Mean Old Man” has Swaby asking his lover why she’s surprised by his behavior when she “knew the kind of man I was before you found yourself begging for more.”
“Slave to Your Love” has Swaby (or Taylor, who wrote it, perhaps) begging for more from a dominatrix. “Roll me over easy meat, pick me off the floor, knock me off my feet.” Ellul goes for broke on the track so hard the rest of the band can barely keep up with him.
The album ends with the soulful “Goodbye Baby,” another example of how the Heavy can switch from blistering rock to something you’d hear on a vintage Stax Records album you found at a thrift store. It’s a sad song about a breakup that hit Taylor like a Mack truck and left him dumbfounded.
Hurt & the Merciless is another fine entry in the band’s discography. They’ve yet to stumble, and are already selling out venues on their current tour. Don’t miss a chance to see them and hear these songs live.
Keep your mind open.
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Another legend I’ll get to see at Levitation Austinis Thurston Moore, formerly of Sonic Youth. He’s playing April 30th with his new band and everything thing I’ve heard from them so far has this nice dangerous edge to it. His former bandmate Lee Ranaldois playing the same day on a different stage after his set, so it’s a double whammy for Sonic Youth fans.
David J, former bass player of Bauhaus and co-founder of Love & Rockets, is bring his band, the Gentlemen Thieves, to Levitation Austin on April 30th. I’m a big fan of Love & Rockets, and this might be the closest I get to any kind of reunion. David J’s dub-style bass playing was an influence on my brief career as a bass player in high school, and he’s a harmonica player to boot (like yours truly). I’m stoked to see him live.
I first heard The Duke Spirit (LielaMoss – vocals, keys, percussion, Toby Butler – bass, Luke Ford – guitars, Daniel Higgins – guitars, organ, Olly Betts – drums) on BBC 6 Music (the greatest radio station in the world) somewhere around 2010 when they played the title track from the Duke Spirit’s 2005 debut album Cuts Across the Land. I nearly wept and thought, “Where has this band been my whole life?”
I found their 2008 release, Neptune, in a bargain CD bin at a Bloomington, Indiana wrecka stow. It opens with a brief hymn that repeats the lines “I do believe in something you know.” You can take that a couple different ways: Either Moss is telling us she has faith in something we know as truth; or she’s defiantly telling someone, perhaps us, that she has faith despite what we might believe.
The first full track, “Send a Little Love Token,” sums up everything I love about the band: Powerful vocals that evoke Patti Smith, hammering piano, big drums, and shoegaze guitar. “The Step and the Whale” is about Moss realizing too late that she’s sabotaged a relationship. It’s a sharp song for her voice, Butler’s bass sounds like something from an old Cure record, and the rest of the band puts down stuff the Jesus and Mary Chain would envy.
“Dog Roses” might be Moss remembering why she sabotaged the relationship and remembering that it was a good idea after all: “I hope you stay in charge of your mouth…When nothing’s fluid you drink yourself through it. Outside you chalk-draw yourself.” “Into the Fold,” a good rocker, is about rebuilding a relationship (“This heart could heal, if you had courage just to say what you feel.”).
“This Ship Was Built to Last” is a combination sea shanty and shoegaze track. Trust me, it works. The combination of the distorted, echoing guitar (especially after the epic bridge), Moss’ chanting vocals, and coxswain drumming is excellent.
Someone must’ve pissed off Moss when she wrote “Wooden Heart,” because it’s a searing diatribe against a former lover, but delivered with a torch song blues feel. “I would understand your heart if I could feel it,” she sings as guitars reminiscent of My Bloody Valentine riffs snake around her.
She’s not angry in “You Really Wake Up the Love in Me.” Quite the opposite, actually. “You taste so good today you’d get love from anyone,” she sings as Betts puts down some of his best licks on the record and the guitars go into full psychedelic madness by the end. “My Sunken Treasure” is borderline power pop. “Lassoo,” with its nice horn section, is the excellent power rock the Duke Spirit does so well, combining fierce vocals with raw rock instrumentation. It continues with “Neptune’s Call,” in which Moss is feeling frisky again (“I tasted the salt on you. Now I have a tongue tattoo.”). The closer, “Sovereign,” is almost a lullaby.
The Duke Spirit have a new album, Kin, due out later this year. I look forward to it. The first three released tracks are a nice blend of their styles: shoegaze, soul, rock. Neptune picks up where Cuts Across the Land left off, and the band is still moving forward.
Keep your mind open.
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In the liner notes for Kaiser Chiefs’ (Ricky Wilson – vocals, Andrew White – guitar, Nick Baines – keyboards, Simon Rix – bass, Vijay Mistry – drums) Education, Education, Education & War, each track is listed with a year, staring with 1921 and ending with 2014 (when the album was released).
The band comes out swinging with “The Factory Gates” (Year – 1921) – a song about the plight of British factory workers trapped in their clock-in, clock-out lives. “They tell you day after day to walk through the factory gates. What you make on the factory floor, you take straight to the company store…’Til they can’t break your will anymore. You are contractually tied to death’s door,” Wilson sings with the gusto of a man ready to smash his cubicle and walk away from his job.
“Coming Home” (Year – 1951) is a fine example of Kaiser Chiefs’ power ballads, with big instrumentation and clever lyrics about a relationship that might be toxic to both people involved but might also be the best thing they’ve had. “Misery Company” (Year – 1939) is about a young officer wanting to stay off the front lines and going mad at the thought of spilling human blood (as noted by the chorus of hysterical laughter). White’s guitar sizzles on this track.
Mistry’s drums hit hard on “Ruffians on Parade” (Year – 1947). It’s easy to hear this as a song about the high the UK was on after World War II ended, but it’s actually a song about how a lot of us have turned into jerks in a world affected by terrorism. We’ve given up privacy and some of our freedom for the illusion of safety and consumerism (“At the last stand of the day, we lost more than we saved. In the dark of the arcades, we spend more than we made.”). “Meanwhile Up in Heaven” (Year – 1970) challenges us to free ourselves from this trap (“And your mind is the key. It is the key that sets you free.”). It’s another big ballad that casually strolls into power pop, although Rix’s bass is particularly fat on it.
“One More Last Song” (Year – 1991) is about post-1980’s greed, and it has a nice, nearly psychedelic keyboard breakdown in it by Baines at one point before the guitar, bass, and drums roll back in to make it a nice rocker. “My Life” (Year – 2000) is a sharp tune about someone moving on after the end of a relationship that had run its course (much like the 1990’s had and everyone looked forward to a new millennium and new opportunities). The band cooks on it and Wilson’s lyrics are Zen-like in their portrayal of someone waking up from their illusions (“I walk along the sand with my shoes in my hand to the daylight, and I realize the fishermen are heading out to ocean. The café owner turns on the urn, flips the sign round to open, and it goes on.”).
“Bows & Arrows” (Year – 1962) could be about a couple who rely on each other to get through everyday life or about two buddies in Viet Nam who rely on each other to stay alive – or both. It has one of the standards of any Kaiser Chiefs record – the chant-along chorus (“We the people created equal, and if that’s true then we’re not the only ones.”).
“Cannons” (Year – 2014) is a damning tirade against Big Government, Big Brother, The Man, the 1%, or whatever you want to call them. Kaiser Chiefs again remind us that we have compromised much for the feeling of security (“They’re making all the difficult decisions, politicians and children first, followed by their personal physicians who say you will be happy if you expect the worst.”). The song ends with a poem, “The Occupation,” read by actor bill Nighy, and speaks of people letting things fall apart around them while the rich get richer.
“Roses” (Year – 1980) is a low key (at least in the beginning) ending to the record, as Wilson sings about the failure of his generation, most of whom didn’t live up to their claims they were going to change the world or not fall into the rat race (“The bottles in the drug store were all just piss and ink. The flags you wore are rags under the sink.”). It’s not all gloom and doom, however. The song turns into a lovely song about hope (“It’s dark where the roses grow.”) with lush keyboards by the time it’s finished.
Education, Education, Education & War is one of the angriest albums I’ve heard in a while, but also one of the cleverest. Kaiser Chiefs have always been able to hide scathing lyrics in near-pop songs, and this album has some of their best deceptive work.
Keep your mind open.
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The Kills‘ fifth full-length album, Ash & Ice, is due for release on June 03, 2016. The first single, “Doing It to Death,” is already available for download and purchase and puts electro beats with their usual smoky, crunchy guitar riffs and sultry vocals.
They’ll start a tour on April 07, 2016 in Nashville, Tennessee and play shows all the way through mid-August. Catch them if you can.
