That would be Billie Joe Armstrong’s big sister? Some nice lines in that.
Yep. I really enjoyed the hell out of that.
Pat DiNizio of the Smithereens has passed away.
That’s sad news.
They were always kind of a mid-list act, but I just went and looked at their Spotify and there’s like 8 or 9 songs on there I could credibly sing along to. They were always on the radio in the 80s and 90s.
RIP, sir.
Heard one on the way into work tonight that caught my attention. The band is Marmalakes, a local outfit that’s been recording for a few years now. This one is the first single from an upcoming LP and has a lot of classic indie rock in there, but mixed up nicely to make something that sounds at least new-ish to me, with a decent helping of dissonance. Right up my alley.
I saw the Smithereens last show which was in the Chicago area. Pat wasn’t looking very good. He needed a lot of help getting on and off the stage. It didn’t stop him from singing great and doing a two hour show, though.
I saw them a bunch of times in the 80’s at crazy shows where they’d do things like throw White Castles into the audience and hit beer bottles of of their heads with their guitar necks. Always fun, always sounded as good or better than on the records. What other band could record Tommy by the Who complete and manage to sound both faithful to the original and like themselves at the same time?
Their final album, 2011, is great too. Everyone should go listen to some Smithereens in memory of Pat.
I haven’t really been a huge fan of Lawrence’s post-Felt work, but I kinda love this new song.
Looking forward to the LP.
I’ve been listening to Beck’s new album Colors. I really like all the singles (five in total) released for that album, especially “Dear Life”.
The non-singles are not as great IMO, but five good singles is still a lot.
I still pretty much will listen to damn near anything at least once. Sadly, that means I end up listening to a lot of stuff that either isn’t very good, or at least isn’t really my thing.
And then on a whim I walk smack dab into something that is my thing, in about a half-dozen different ways.
Something like The Pale Lights.
Here’s the checklist:
- Start with “Wait, is this some great lost Lloyd Cole album from right after Rattlesnakes?”
- Add in a whole lot of “Oh, I bet this is a Flying Nun record I’ve not heard yet. It’s brilliant!”
- Toss in some “I’m getting a Belle & Sebastian vibe off this.”
- Add in some “Lemme check the credits. Wait. Gary Olson produced this? Marlborough Sound? That’s the guy from The Ladybug Transistor!”
I guess they’ve been kicking around since 2012 or so, with a 2014 album and one that just came out this fall.
Here’s my current favorite track from the new album, although picking just one was tough:
This is the most Ladybug Transistor/Kindercore-sounding track:
And here’s an older track that shows off more of the Lloyd Cole doing some long-lost Chills or Bats or Clean song:
Anyway, dig on this whole record:
I’m busy trying to narrow down my top 10 for the year and it’s physically painful. About 25 records are in contention at the moment and it’s real damn hard to drop more than a couple of them in any given reconfiguration of things.
For shits and giggles, the current top-25, in alpha order:
- Aeternam – Ruins of Empires
- Aether Realm – Tarot
- Alestorm – No Grave But the Sea
- Arch Enemy – Will to Power
- Ayreon – The Source
- Caligula’s Horse – In Contact
- Cold Insight – Further Nowhere
- Dance with the Dead – B-Sides: Vol. 1
- Enslaved – E
- Fen – Winter
- Hallas – Excerpts from a Future Past
- Iced Earth – Incorruptible
- Mega Drive – The Grid
- The Midnight – Nocturnal
- November’s Doom – Hamartia
- Ordan Ogen – Gunmen
- Pentakill – II: Grasp of the Undying
- Perturbator – New Model
- Royal Thunder – Wick
- Septicflesh – Codex Omega
- Sorcerer – The Crowning of the Fire King
- Unleash the Archers – Apex
- Violet Cold – Anomie
- Wintersun – Forest of Seasons
- Xanthochroid – Of Earthe and Axen Acts 1 & 2
And hey, it’s not even all metal!
I mean maybe like 75% metal. But still!
Yay, these folks are terrific! They’ve got quite the indiepop hipster pedigree: the members all come from bands like Crystal Stilts and Comet Gain and Soft City. And yeah, they certainly do wear their influences on their sleeves, the aforementioned Lloyd Cole and LT and Kiwipop, but also Yo La Tengo and The Feelies.
Do give the first album a spin. It’s equally worthwhile.
This year is weird for me in that I thought there was a lot of pretty good stuff but at the same time nothing I’m super passionate about. I’ve kind of given up putting together a best of list as a result.
I’ve pried my ears off the new one to give their first record a spin, and yes, it is also wonderful. Holy shit this is a good band.
There’s about 3 albums I know for a fact fit into the top, well, 3 I guess. Just utterly loved them to pieces all year long. After that is about 10-12 records that are all really damned good. Not quite AOTY status, but easily top-10 material. I am loathe to go up to 15, cuz once I do, a couple of funny numbers that suffer from a noticeably imperfection or just didn’t get enough plays suddenly try to leap into contention and then suddenly I’m looking at a top 20 ;-)
I think it was easier when I was buying 100-ish new releases a year to go over to the stack of records and cds and picking out 10 things that moved me. Nowadays my listening is so scattered over multiple streaming services and physical releases, I have a lot more trouble even remembering what I heard this year.
I was a little put off of the new Sweet Apple, btw (that’s John Petkovic of Cobra Verde, J Mascis of Dino Jr, et al) because the first song they revealed so completely rips off the riff from the Easybeats’ “Sorry”. I mean seriously:
But damn if thing isn’t a great grower. Definitely one of the best pure rock and roll record of the year for me.
Ok, since I was having trouble with a general Best of, I offer up instead some excellent albums from local MA artists that released in 2017.
Kindling - Hush which came out this year. Shoegaze
Infinity Girl - Somewhere Nice, Someday final album from another NE Shoegaze band, as they broke up after it’s release
Pile - A Hairshirt of Purpose Great live band, put out a pretty good album too. Post-Hardcore/Noise Rock I guess?
Palehound - A Place I’ll Always Go Alternative/DIY
See the bigger pictures are still relatively few in number so I did my due diligence but also highlighted a ton of awesome music in the process via the great album charter at Topsters2.
Hällas - Excerpts from a Future Past
An excellent retro-prog effort out of Sweden, Excerpts from a Future Past is a beautifully constructed ode to days gone by infused with clever modern elements here and there, sprinkled perfectly. By a fair margin, my album of the year.
Æther Realm - Tarot
Local North Carolina rockers Æther Realm’s folk metal magnum opus, Tarot is a blistering journey through the infamous deck drenched in moody atmospherics, howling vocals, and catchy-as-fuck choruses. Must-listen material and so much better than the year’s “big name” folk metal release, The Forest Seasons.
Pentakill - II: Grasp of the Undying
What happens when you combine the songwriting talents that drove tech-death metal masterminds Xerath to greatness before their tragic split-up this year, the vocal glory that is Jorn Lande’s unmistakable yowl, and League of Legends? The answer is apparently the year’s best power metal album.
Sorcerer - The Crowning of the Fire King
Classic doom metal sold by rock-solid production, fabulous songwriting, and consistently impressive musical and vocal talents on the parts of all involved, Sorcerer’s latest really just got me into a solid groove time and time again near the year’s end and I can’t get its bewitching hooks out of my mind, even now.
The Midnight - Nocturnal
The latest from vocal synthwave impresarios The Midnight, Nocturnal shaves a couple of tracks off the usual count to delve deeper into numbers like “Crystalline” here, mingling soulful vocals, 80s-inspired synthlines, and analog instrumentation from guitars, saxophones, and more. The sounds of summer, indeed.