My Diligence destroy your turntable, Hælos make change, Lady Lamb gets personal and Brim Liski take flight in today’s Roundup. Congratulations! You’re over the hump!
1 Turns out Jean-Claude Van Damme isn’t the only Muscles from Brussels. Meet Belgian heavy-psych power trio My Diligence, who are clearly just as capable of kicking some serious ass — in the musical sense. Look no further than the video for Resentful, the latest single from their imminent album Sun Rose (out Friday). It’s got everything you need: Mighty scorching riffs, deep hard-hitting grooves, trippy effect-laden vocals and plenty of big, bombastic power. Just don’t do that to your turntable, OK? SAYS THE PRESS RELEASE: “Resentful was actually the first song we wrote when we started writing our second album. We wanted to push things forward and become heavier than ever and this song in particular signals a rebirth of My Diligence. My Diligence Mk. II. After our previous bassist’s departure, we just wanted to two guitarists, one drummer and a chance to get rid of the past and focus on the future. No doubt about it, it had to open Sun Rose.” Feel the heat:
2 Change is inevitable. So you might as well embrace it. Hælos certainly have. For their upcoming sophomore album Any Random Kindness, the London electro trio made their touring guitarist a full-time member and retooled their creative approach and songwriting style. The resulting disc — due May 10 — apparently “examines the search for connection in an increasingly fractured world.” I don’t know precisely what that means. But I do know that after watching the (ahem) splashy video for the moody and seductive single Kyoto, you’ll never look at sushi the same way again. SAYS THE PRESS RELEASE: “Kyoto (is) a glitchy, yet catchy slice of electronica that critiques politicians who prioritize economics above the environment.” Pass the ginger:
3 You can’t outrun yourself. Lady Lamb — a.k.a Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter Aly Spaltro — has apparently learned that. So her third album Even in the Tremor, which arrives in May, is reportedly her most personal and brutally honest album to date. The lyrics to the unevenly shuffling electro-pop title track and first single would seem to bear that out, based on stocktaking lines like, “The past will kill the present if I let it” and “It takes a conscious effort to hollow out this head.” Hopefully, her trip to Mexico to shoot the video also helped a little. SAYS THE PRESS RELEASE: “The whole idea of this new album is the push and pull between calmness and chaos, joy and anxiety, self-loathing and self-love,” says Spaltro. Nowhere is this idea more clear than via the title track and first song shared, an anxious dance party mantra for romantics and overthinkers alike that unspools with all the far-flung places Spaltro has visited throughout the course of her writing process, including Berlin, Montreal, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater house in Pennsylvania and Nicaragua’s Masaya volcano.” Get even:
4 No one is going to accuse Brim Liski of overdoing it. The Denver-based electronica outfit hasn’t released an album since they put out their ironically titled sophomore effort The Repetitions back in 2012. And if we’re going to split hairs, they aren’t putting one out now — their March 22 release Duels is a four-track EP. But hey, beggars and choosers. And if the sweeping space-flight keyboards, soaring vocals and epic grandeur of their futuristic first single A Different View is anything to go by, fans might consider it worth the wait. SAYS THE PRESS RELEASE: “Like the EP as a whole, A Different View is about the challenge of acceptance to new unexplored territories in our lives. Making big changes. Accepting things aren’t working and to move on. I personally had many issues blocking me from being who I wanted and needed to be,” says Ryan Policky. En garde:
