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10 Best New Songs I Heard This Week
I listened to a ton of great new music this week. These are the 10 best things that I heard. Let me know what you like, dislike, and what you’ve found recently. Happy listening.
Lyonnais – “The Fatalist”
Motorik beat. Distant, hazy, distorted vocals. Walls of screaming, metallic, guitar noise. These are all things that I like. And all are present here. I haven’t heard anything else from this Atlanta, GA. band yet, but this is easily the best new track that I heard all week and has me anxious to check out their brand new LP Want For Wish For Nowhere, just out on Hoss Records.
Bad Sports – “June Sixteenth”
I am loving Bad Sports’ second album, aptly titled Kings Of The Weekend. These guys clearly have a knack for turning out two-minute, poppy, mid-70’s influenced punk gems that will sit comfortably on your playlists alongside the likes of The Ramones, Buzzcocks, and first album Undertones. This should be a big hit with most readers of The Big Takeover.
Boris – “Spoon”
“Spoon” is a song off of Boris’s 2011 album New Album which offers shoegaze/dreampop reworkings of songs from this Japanese band’s huge back catalog of sludgy, drone rock. To these ears, this is reminiscent of My Bloody Valentine and the first couple of Asobi Seksu albums, to name a few. And I would contend that it’s the best thing they’ve put out since the epic, awesome 2006 song “Farewell” that opened Pink.
A Classic Education – “Best Regards”
I was happy to come across this warm, upbeat track from a Spanish band that sounds as though it was heavily influenced by both 60’s American pop and 80’s British indiepop. Looking forward to their debut full-length Call It Blazing, out at the end of the month on Lefse Records.
Bare Wires – “Cheap Perfume”
This is the title track off of Bare Wires’ forthcoming album Cheap Perfume, out on Southpaw Records on October 18th. This song mines the same mix of 70’s glam and garage rock that Smith Westerns had much success with earlier this year. Think Mott The Hoople and T. Rex if you’re looking for antecedents.
Should – “Turned Tables”
I was not aware of Like A Fire Without Sound, the April 2011 release on which this track can be found, until doing a search after reading that this band’s 1995 album A Folding Sieve is set to be reissued by Captured Tracks. A Folding Sieve is a shoegaze album that I’ve read great things about, but never heard. This song and the others from Like A Fire were not as loud and characteristically shoegazey as I was expecting. Instead, they focus on the dreamier side of that genre, with gentle vocals being cooed over crisp, but still mellow guitar lines that often remind of New Order minus their more danceable punch. Very pleasant stuff.
Jacuzzi Boys – “Glazin”
This Miami, Florida trio turns out lo-fi guitar pop gems reminiscent of 60’s garage rock and late 70’s power pop. This is the title track off of their excellent second album.
Religious Knives – “The Message”
Religious Knives are just one of many bands to put out very good albums on the Sacred Bones label this year. Smokescreen features a spooky, psychedelic, krautrock influenced, brand of postpunk that I took to immediately. This track was a standout for me.
Tunnels – “Solid Space”
You’d be forgiven for assuming that Tunnels’ album The Blackout was released in London or Paris in the early 1980’s, as its sound is clearly steeped in the icy cold, minimal, detached, dark side of the new wave and synth pop that was coming out of those and other places at that time. Tunnels is actually the one-man bedroom project of Nicholas Bindeman, and from what I’ve read is quite a departure from his past releases, though I can’t really comment on that as I have not heard any of them.
Gross Relations – “Come Clean”
“Come Clean” harks back to noisy, 90’s guitar driven, indie rock. It’s the title track and first single off the new EP from this Brooklyn crew. The sound is muddy, distorted, and rough around the edges in all of the right ways. Enjoy.
