If you don’t like Sparks, we are not going to be friends. (Full disclosure: The actual odds of us becoming friends — or even casual acquaintances, for that matter — is virtually nil no matter what; as anyone who’s met me can quite correctly tell you, I’m an misanthropic, reclusive and generally miserable loner with a shitty attitude, a bad temper, zero people skills and absolutely no interest in improving any of the above. So trust me when I say you’re better off. But where was I? Oh yeah, Sparks.) For my money, their ’70s albums like Kimono My House, A Woofer in Tweeter’s Clothing, Propaganda, Indiscreet and Big Beat are right up there with anybody else’s classics. And songs like This Town Ain’t Big Enough For the Both Of Us, Amateur Hour, Talent Is An Asset, Get In The Swing, Something For The Girl With Everything and Big Boy never fall out of rotation in my world. So it’s been good to see Ron and Russell Mael getting, er, back in the swing over the past few years with their 2105 album FFS (a collaboration with Franz Ferdinand) and 2017’s Hippopotamus. All of which means I’m giddy as a schoolgirl (or as close as I ever get) about the May 15 release of the brothers’ 24th studio album A Steady Drip, Drip, Drip — which will hopefully feature their recent single Please Don’t Fuck Up My World, a finely pointed sequel to their 1974 gem Never Turn Your Back On Mother Earth that you can watch above. Is it the only album that’s been announced over the past few days? Does the Pope shit in the woods? As always, I’ve added several dozen new titles to the list, including a new album from some young lad named Justin Bieber, a Def Leppard box set and oodles more. Scroll thee downwards to peruse yon list of recente additions, or bouncy-bounce yourself over to the Upcoming Releases page so as to feast your peepers on every gawddamn title coming ’round the mountain when she comes. And thank your lucky stars that this is as close as you get to meeting me.
January 31
GravelRoad | Crooked Nation
Lord Invader & His Calypso Group | Calypso Travels
Loving | If I Am Only My Thoughts
My Bus | Our Life In The Desert
February 7
Aeonian Sorrow | A Life Without EP
Richie Kotzen | 50 For 50
Nature | Voix
February 14
Justin Bieber | Changes
February 21
Creatures of Doom | Tears of Joy EP
Wilsen | Ruiner
February 28
New Age Grate | Tape One
Psalm Zero | Sparta
Tycho | Simulcast
March 6
Anna Calvi | Hunted
The Human League | Octopus Deluxe Edition
NCT 127 | The New Album
Tribe Of Pazuzu | King Of All Demons
March 13
Def Leppard | The Early Years 79-81
Huntsmen | Mandala Of Fear
Ruin Lust | Choir of Babel
Sicarius | God Of Dead Roots
March 20
Neck Of The Woods | The Annex of Ire
March 27
Aodon | 11069
The Black Watch | Brilliant Failures
Rory Block | Prove It On Me
Deeper | This Heat
Margaret Glaspy | Devotion
Half Waif | The Caretaker
Little Dragon | New Me, Same Us
Hailu Mergia | Yene Mircha
Molchat Doma | Krysh Nashikh Domov Reissue
Molchat Doma | Etazhi Reissue
Omega Infinity | Solar Spectre
Windy and Carl | Allegiance and Conviction
April 3
Melkbelly | Pith
Mentrix | My Enemy, My Love
April 10
Gomorra | Divine Judgement
April 17
Datura4 | West Coast Highway Cosmic
April 24
Barishi | Old Smoke
May 1
Ghostpoet | I Grow Tired But Dare Not Fall Asleep
May 15
Sparks | A Steady Drip, Drip, Drip
