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After a few slow weeks, today is a whopper, release-wise, and I review 10 albums — technically 11 as there are two by the same artist. Those include the latest from Water From Your Eyes, Superchunk, Hand Habits, TOPS, cuddlecore vets Tullycraft, former Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine frontman Jim Bob, Hunx and His Punx (first album in 12 years), shoegazer Winter, post-punk/dub producer Adrian Sherwood, and Pino Palladino & Blake Mills.
Pino & Blake’s album inspired my Indie Basement Classic this week.
It’s a big week in Notable Releases, too, as Andrew reviews new ones from Deftones, TWIABP, Greg Freeman, Earl Sweatshirt, Ghostface Killah, and more.
In other news, I have started doing interviews for the BrooklynVegan Show podcast and my first episode is with Steve Mason of the soon-to-be The Beta Band’s Steve Mason.
Speaking of, BrooklynVegan has TWO podcasts now, the other is BV Weekly where my coworkers Dave and Andrew talk about the week’s hottest stories, new releases and more.
There’s a lot of stuff this week so I’ll keep it short up top. Head below for all the reviews…
ALBUM OF THE WEEK: Water From Your Eyes – It’s a Beautiful Place (Matador)
A little structure does wonders for this NYC avant pop duo
“We knew this one was coming out on Matador so we tried to make it good,” Water From Your Eyes’ Rachel Brown said in an Instagram video promoting the band’s new album, It’s a Beautiful Place. You may recall that WFYE’s last album, 2023’s Everyone’s Crushed, also came out on Matador, but that one had already been finished by the time they signed to the label. Which makes sense. In my review I wrote, “Everyone’s Crushed is probably not the album the major indie was hoping for, as on first listen it feels weirder and more obtuse than anything they’ve ever done before.” This one, though, definitely feels like they tried. And succeeded.
It’s a Beautiful Place is still “blender music,” where sugary melodies sit shoulder to shoulder with heavy riffs, shoegazey squall, glitchy hyperpop, sudden tempo changes, extreme autotune, jangly guitars, classic rock noodling, etc. etc. etc. But this time there’s a recipe to the smoothie, with hooks and melody as the primary flavors. Most of it works. “Life Signs” is part jazzy dream pop and part punk battering ram; “Nights in Armor” has one of the album’s best riff/bassline combos, with a rhythm track that sounds like they accidentally spilled soda on their drum machine and liked the chaos it created; and “Playing Classics” is dance-pop as only they could make it, with Brown’s casual vocal style spitting out nonsequiturs over an infectiously quirky beat. It’s all very charming.
Water From Your Eyes are probably never going to make a “normal” record — though Nate Amos’ pop smarts are all over his releases as This is Lorelei — but that’s okay. A little structure does wonders for them.
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Superchunk – Songs in the Key of Yikes (Merge)
The NC indie rock lifers find anthems in the anxiety of the moment, and we find catharsis
Superchunk’s 13th album is very much a product of our uncertain times. “It’s always been the case that everyone is going through something that you may not be aware of,” says frontman Mac McCaughan of the album’s title and themes. “This is currently more true than ever—but also the case that we are all going through some things together. In the face of that, what good is art and where is happiness found? (Spoiler alert: I don’t know.)”
Songs in the Key of Yikes carries the same spirit as 2018’s What a Time to Be Alive, but with even more dread and stress. “It only hurts when I breathe,” Mac sings on “Bruised Lung,” which is about as subtle as this record gets. Elsewhere, we get songs like “No Hope,” “Trying to Care Less,” and “Everybody Dies.” It’s not a time for understatement, but there’s catharsis in these 10 songs, all delivered with Superchunk’s signature anthemic choruses. Singing along to “No hope, no hope, no hope!” feels pretty good when we’re all going through this together.
Pick up our exclusive vinyl variant of Songs in the Key of Yikes with alternate cover art on green smoke vinyl in the BV shop.
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TOPS – Bury the Key (Ghostly International)
Montreal’s soft-focus pop perfectionists add a touch of lyrical grit on their first album in five years
“We’re always kind of seen as a soft band, or like naive or friendly in a Canadian way,” TOPS say in regard to their first album in five years (and first for Ghostly). “But we made it a challenge to really channel the world around us.”
Musically, I’m not sure they fully succeeded in that challenge. Bury the Key may be the most lush, best-sounding record the Montreal band have ever made, luxuriating in a wide variety of ’80s soft-focus touchstones: Sade, Prefab Sprout, Fleetwood Mac, The Blue Nile, Donald Fagen, Scritti Politti, and China Crisis.
David Carriere’s crystalline guitarwork and production remain at the heart of TOPS’ sound. If you have a taste for the cleanest of guitar tones, his lightly funky riffs are an endless smorgasbord, and his skill at layering synths, electric piano, flutes, and brass is impeccable. Jane Penny, with her expressive voice, is the soul of the group, and her lyrics this time bring some grit from the outside world to the party, for a style she calls “Evil TOPS.” You feel it especially on “Falling on My Sword,” one of the darkest, most “rock” tracks the band have ever delivered.
Mostly, though, it’s satisfying, superior sophistipop: the sleek “Mean Streak,” the string-laden disco of “Annihilation,” the immaculate Stevie Nicks/Paddy McAloon pastiche “Wheels at Night,” and “Call You Back” are particularly sweet.
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Hunx and His Punx – Walk Out on This World (Get Better Records)
The first album in 12 years from these former Bay Area garage punks finds them older, wiser, and better
Led by Seth Bogart—who also spent time in wild, very out San Francisco disco group Gravy Train!!!!—Hunx and His Punx were part of the fertile Bay Area garage-punk scene of the late ’00s that also included Shannon & the Clams (Shannon plays bass in the Punx), Thee Oh Sees, Nobunny, and Sonny & The Sunsets. Their records were wild, manic, and loose, and their live shows were even more so—not to mention often debauched.
In the last decade, most of that scene has either left San Francisco or broken up. Hunx and His Punx, now based in Los Angeles, haven’t played much and haven’t released a record since 2013’s Street Punk. Bogart, Shannon Shaw, and drummer Erin Emalie have finally returned with their third album, one that finds them older, decidedly more mellow, and all the better for it.
On Walk Out on This World, the trio no longer sound like a John Waters bar fight—despite feisty song titles like “Alone in Hollywood on Acid,” “Wild Boys,” and “Top of the Punks.” Instead, they’re much closer to the kind of accomplished ’60s-inspired pop Shannon & the Clams make. In fact, Shannon takes lead vocals on a good chunk of the record, but Seth has become a much better singer in the last 10 years and holds his own against her powerful pipes.
Best of all, the songs are great: warm, melodic, and tinged with sadness, like the best girl group records they so clearly love. As fun as their first two albums were, Walk Out on This World is the best Hunx and His Punx record yet.
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Hand Habits – Blue Reminder (Fat Possum)
Meg Duffy returns to guitars on the strongest Hand Habits album yet
“For this record I set out to no longer shapeshift when it came to the person I become in the face of love,” says Meg Duffy of their latest album as Hand Habits. They’re talking about emotions and lyrical themes, but it may apply musically too.
Duffy began as a guitarist, playing with Kevin Morby, Weyes Blood, Mega Bog, and Perfume Genius before launching a solo career that has seen Hand Habits morph from album to album. Synthesizers dominated on 2023’s Sugar the Bruise, an interesting pivot that didn’t seem to totally fit Duffy’s style. On Blue Reminder, an album of vulnerable love songs, guitars are back at the forefront with a distinctly American (though not Americana) sound that feels like a perfect match.
There were clearly lessons learned with Sugar the Bruise: synths still play a role, but more for color and texture than as a lead instrument. The result is a classic guitar-pop record—recalling Aimee Mann or Shawn Colvin, but with a distinctly modern sensibility—that allows Meg’s personality, style, and songwriting to shine brightly.
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Adrian Sherwood – The Collapse of Everything (On-U Sound)
Master dub/post-punk producer reflects on sound, space, and memory with a little help from Brian Eno on his first solo album in 13 years
Producer Adrian Sherwood helped shape the sound of the original UK post-punk movement, adding equal parts paranoia and echo to records by The Pop Group, Einstürzende Neubauten, The Fall, Medium Medium, Maximum Joy, and more—not to mention reggae legends like Lee “Scratch” Perry, Bim Sherman, Creation Rebel, and Sly & Robbie. He’s also led his own projects, including Tackhead and New Age Steppers.
Sherwood remains an in-demand producer and remixer, having recently sprinkled his pixie dust on records by Spoon and Panda Bear & Sonic Boom. The Collapse of Everything is his first album credited solely to him in 13 years, featuring many longtime collaborators including Doug Wimbish, Keith Le Blanc, Cyrus Richards, and percussionist Horseman. Brian Eno even turns up on “The Well is Poisoned.”
It’s an instrumental tour de force of vibe, atmosphere, and musicianship from a consummate master of his craft. The album feels equally at home in Japanese record bars, forward-thinking dance clubs, or even chic cocktail lounges and hotel lobbies. (It’s also a perfect back-to-mine post-clubbing record.) Dedicated to friends Mark Stewart and Keith LeBlanc, who both passed away in recent years, The Collapse of Everything carries an eerie chill of loss that makes it all the more poignant and compelling.
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Pino Palladino & Blake Mills – That Wasn’t A Dream (New Deal / Impulse)
From fretless guitars to warm basslines, subtle mastery reigns on Blake Mills & Pino Palladino’s second full-length collaboration
I caught bassist Pino Palladino and guitarist Blake Mills at the 2023 Big Ears Festival. I had just planned to watch a couple of songs and then head to another show, but accompanied by saxophonist Sam Gendel and drummer Abe Rounds, they were so good—so fascinating to watch—that I stayed for the entire set.
That Wasn’t a Dream is the follow-up to Mills and Palladino’s excellent 2021 debut, Notes With Attachments, and like that one, it defies easy categorization. It’s jazz, but also much more, as Mills and Palladino’s résumés and collaborators span nearly every genre. “It came to light, really, that if we could make something work with the least possible ingredients, space could become the centerpiece,” says Palladino—and you really feel that here in a way that reminds me of the final two Talk Talk albums.
There is so much space in these laid-back, deeply groovy tracks that you can hear every instrument clearly, especially Pino’s warm, melodic basslines and Blake’s subtle fretwork, including explorations with the fretless baritone sustainer guitar. In his hands, it sounds as much like woodwinds or brass as it does a string instrument. There’s also plenty of room for guests, including Gendel and Rounds, but it’s the chemistry between Blake and Pino that truly shines.
Among the many highlights: “Heat Sink,” which makes full use of that sustainer guitar, is both alien and inviting, while “I Laugh in the Mouth of the Lion” drifts along like a tropical breeze. That Wasn’t a Dream is transportive, magical, and always keeps you guessing.
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Winter – Adult Romantix (Winspear)
On her fifth album, shoegazer Winter never loses sight of the song amid the noise and ethereal haze
Samira Winter has been making hazy indie rock for a decade now, predating the current shoegaze boom, and she’s always approached it from more of a traditional indie rock background—where bands like Lilys and Dinosaur Jr are just as important as The Sundays and Ivy. Adult Romantix is Winter’s fifth album (sixth if you count her collaboration with Triptides) and first for Winspear, and she’s brought her A-game with a record that deploys the full arsenal of genre signifiers—glide guitar, ethereal vocals, heavy noise, bashing drums and breakbeats, dreamy atmospherics—but always in support of strong songwriting.
Made leading up to a move from LA to NYC, she calls it “a tunnel of summers and memories,” and there’s even more wistful melancholy here than on What Kind of Blue Are You? There are bigger hooks too, which show up all over: the near-power-pop “Just Like a Flower,” the danceable, swirling “Sometimes I Think About Death,” the crunchy, MBV-ish “Hide-a-Lullaby” (featuring Tanukichan), the lo-fi ode to her Echo Park apartment “In My Basement Room,” and the blissed-out “Candy #9,” which owes a little to her Brazilian heritage.
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Jim Bob – Automatic / Stick (Cherry Red)
The former Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine frontman shifts gears between two stylistically but connected albums
Jim Bob has been calling it like he sees it since the early ’90s with his band Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine: standing up for the little guy, seeing things from all sides, and doing it all with a wicked sense of humor and clever wordplay. He’s back with two new albums, released the same day but they are very much separate entities (despite the nearly identical covers), or in his parlance, different makes of cars.
Automatic is a full-band record that leans more toward mid-tempo singalongs, while Stick is revved up, high-energy, and punk-inspired. Both are excellent—and honestly not that different-sounding—and how could you not want to listen to an album with songs called “Sword Fight at McDonalds,” “Every Day’s a Discotheque,” “Scream If You Want to Go Slower,” and “Frank Bought a Drone”?
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Tullycraft – Shoot The Point (HHBTM Records)
Seattle cuddlecore lifers keep it twee on their first album in six years
Tullycraft are Seattle cuddlecore legends, now in their 30th year of making hyperactive, winsome, and very twee punky indiepop. They may be a little too twee and winsome for some, and on Shoot the Point—their seventh album and first in six years—they continue to peg those meters. But they are never less than fun, and when records come this infrequently, their patented style still feels fresh.
It’s a Tullycraft album through and through: sing-along choruses, trade-off boy/girl vocals, and a fondness for songs about bands and music obsessives. Shoot the Point is full of them, including “Jeanie’s Up Again and Blaring Faith by The Cure,” “Street Hassle Plays on Repeat,” and “Modern Lovers.” May Tullycraft never retire their cardigans.
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INDIE BASEMENT CLASSIC: Talk Talk – Laughing Stock (Verve. 1991)
Talk Talk’s final album remains a wonderful mystery more than 30 years later that continues to reveal more with every listen
Blake Mills & Pino Palladino’s fantastic new album had me thinking of the Talk Talk’s magical swan song…
Over the course of 10 years and five albums, Talk Talk underwent a remarkable transformation from new wave hitmakers to arty improvisers whose sound bridged jazz, classical, ambient, and soulful, psychedelic prog rock. By the time of 1991’s Laughing Stock, the group had essentially become frontman Mark Hollis, drummer Paul Harris, and regular producer/collaborator Tim Friese-Greene, plus nearly 50 session players brought in to help Hollis realize the music he was hearing in his head.
Like 1989’s Spirit of Eden, Laughing Stock is more about vibe and mood than songs, with Hollis and the rest of the players creating a lush, fully realized environment for these six lengthy tracks to grow and flourish. All but ignored on its original release, Laughing Stock is now seen as one of the embers that lit the post-rock fire and has proven endlessly influential.
By all accounts, the recording process was intense — working in near darkness with musicians brought in to improvise on specific sections of songs without being allowed to hear the whole track, among other things. But the final product is one that rewards listening to loud and repeatedly, with new wonders to be discovered each time.
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