Jim Ward shares a secret, The Neverlutionaries fight the good fight, Hundred Headless Horsemen become animals, Health and NiN get it together — and they’re far from the only cool collaboration on tap in today’s Thursday Roundup. See for yourself:
1 | Jim Ward | I Got A Secret (ft. Shawna Potter)
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Jim Ward (Sparta, At The Drive-In) has revealed I Got A Secret featuring Shawna Potter of hardcore-punk band War On Women. The track comes from his forthcoming solo album Daggers, due out June 11. Jim says: “I Got A Secret was one of the very first riffs that shaped the direction of this record — raw, angry, unapologetic guitar — as soon as the music was finished and I began writing vocals I knew I wanted a call and response with someone that could push me and immediately called Shawna Potter from War On Women. I was over the moon she not just agreed to sing with me but absolutely brought all her brilliance and power with her to the song.”
2 | The Neverlutionaries | Save Yourself
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “I wrote Save Yourself about a dear friend of mine who had serious substance abuse issues that eventually claimed his life. Though he had a crazier existence than mine, he always tried to give me advice about getting myself together,” explains Christopher Harold Wells of Nashville psychedelic alternative rock band The Neverlutionaries, who just released the track from their debut self-titled LP. He adds: “At the time I didn’t get it and he was really just trying to save me, but I didn’t understand.” A sludgy dirge with deeply affecting lyrics about self-preservation interjected with screaming guitar licks, Save Yourself is a psychedelic, visceral smash that grew out of evocative words that Wells wrote to himself. “It was originally written as a poem that I wrote as therapy so as not to curse him out because I knew his addiction was a disease that took over his life. A few months later, I wrote a simple yet cool detuned riff that seemed to adhere itself to my words and the poem became a song.”
3 | Hundred Headless Horsemen | No Longer Human
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Hundred Headless Horsemen are a psychedelic death metal band hailing from Helsinki. No Longer Human is the third single from their first full-length, a concept album titled Apokalepsia that will be released on May 21. The band blend different subgenres from the past and present to create a unique brand of psychedelic death metal. Their musical approach mirrors the narrative of the album, that moves in multiple time and space dimensions based on fragments of articles about a formerly unknown psychoneurological condition. “What to do when you do not recognize yourself anymore? You fear that others will note what is happening to you.You do everything in your power to hide it from their eyes. But the transformation is oblivious to your will, fears or needs.You already bear its marks for everyone to see.”
4 | Health x Nine Inch Nails | Isn’t Everyone
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “At last, the collaboration we’ve all been waiting for: Health have teamed up with Nine Inch Nails for the first time on their new single, Isn’t Everyone. Dynamic, pulsating, and haunting, Isn’t Everyone was produced by Health and Nine Inch Nails, and mixed by Atticus Ross. Says Health: “It’s fucking Nine Inch Nails. That speaks for itself. You don’t need a clever quote to encapsulate it.”
5 | Frank Turner | The Gathering
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Frank Turner didn’t want to write a lockdown song. Over the past year he’s written and rewritten songs, trying to steer himself away from the subject that will no doubt dominate the charts for years to come. But for a man whose life and career is so intrinsically linked to live music, not referencing the dearth of festivals and gigs started to prove impossible. Not least since Turner himself has spent much of lockdown playing virtual shows from his living room, raising over £250,000 to support endangered grassroots venues up and down the U.K., many of which might not have otherwise survived the pandemic. So it’s fitting that Frank’s new single The Gathering, an upbeat glam-rock stomp, puts a positive spin on things, anticipating a return to normality. “It’s about that moment when you come together in a room full of people, and you lean on a stranger and sing along with the chorus and get the words wrong,” explains Turner. The new track features Jason Isbell and Muse’s Dom Howard.”
6 | Southern Culture On The Skids | Run Baby Run
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Hey everybody, check out our video for Run Baby Run from our album At Home With Southern Culture On The Skids! Special thanks to Mike Benson for the use of Black Betty, his tricked-out Triumph motorcycle, in the video. Mike also helped the band shoot some footage along the way. Run Baby Run is a SCOTS production — filmed at the Kudzu Ranch and on the backroads of Orange Co., N.C.”
7 | Sunny Jain | I’ll Make It Up To You
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Sunny Jain has released the video and single I’ll Make It Up To You, featuring Black Pumas’ Adrian Quesada on lead guitar, Melt Yourself Down’s Kushal Gaya on vocals, rhythm guitarist Pete Eide, trombonist Darius Christian, bassist Yuka Tadano, with Jain holding it down on the kit. The track comes from an upcoming collaborative album of 10 songs and a book of 22 “planet-based” recipes produced and directed by Jain titled Phoenix Rise. “The lyric “you shot me for nothing” kind of sums up what we witness in this country time and time again. Human beings are targets of gun violence regularly and our government officials refuse to enact legislation to protect us. Did you know that U.S. civilians own nearly half the small firearms distributed in the world, and our gun homicide rate is 25 times that of other high-income countries?”
8 | Exum | Arrest The Dancer
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Exum, aka Antone Chavez Exum Jr., released the single Arrest The Dancer (prod. by Samkopf), accompanied by a retro and erotic video. Exum cultivated his musical talent while playing in the NFL. With his forthcoming debut album Xardinal Coffee (June 4), his artistic journey begins. The album creates a musical ecosystem with a striking blend of idiosyncratic bedroom pop grooves, electronic-tinged wonky R&B and slick hip-hop. “I wrote the song in a hotel room: New Orleans, Louisiana, the night before a game. I had just finished a documentary on David Bowie’s last days on Earth, and the making of his last works, Lazarus and Blackstar. The chorus came to me instantly, and I later reworked some of the lyrics to depict a scene I had floating around somewhere in my brain: A very curious man driving by an apartment building, distracted by an erotic girl in a little red room. The way she was moving within her body led him to believe she deserved criminal punishment. I’m your peeping Thomas.”
https://youtu.be/3eEWsy4bbvY
9 | Best Move | Invisible Sigh
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “The Sacramento trio of Kris Anaya, Joseph Davancens and Fernando Oliva formed Best Move in 2019. They take direction from 1960s and ’70s troubadours like Randy Newman, Van Dyke Parks, Brian Wilson and Harry Nilsson (even taking their new band name from the latter’s song) and the “visual scoring” of indie-pop song placement in 21st-century TV shows and films. Best Move will release their debut EP Mirror Image Twins on Friday. Their latest single Invisible Sigh is about the COVID-19 pandemic. “The song’s lyrics deal with the mental and physical toll that death can have on a human being, and the hardships of not being able to be near people during this terrible time of grief,” Kris explains. “I wrote the song early in the pandemic. It was something that I kind of needed to write. The ability to connect with people through a song was something that was on my mind during this process.”
10 | UgLi | Bad Egg
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Philadelphia and its surrounding suburbs have been a hotbed for exciting new artists and UgLi is no exception. Guitarist & vocalist Dylyn Durante watched bands play in a seedy South Jersey basement and decided that she wanted to be the one sweating it out on beer-soaked floors. Over the course of three years, UgLi have gone from an idea to a fully realized band that is fueled by a hunger to play live and continuously grow as songwriters. After releasing their debut EP Scattergood in 2019, UgLi spent 2020 hunkered down to track their debut LP Fuck, an eight-song effort that takes elements of alternative, punk, and grunge and makes it feel fresh. Bad Egg is a perfect example of their ability to weave in and out of each genre. Their album drops on June 18.”
11 | James Righton | Release Party
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “James Righton shares his Release Party, his first new single since releasing his critically acclaimed album The Performer in 2020. Release Party was made remotely between his home studio and the Deewee studio. Whilst it retains some of the glam, ’70s art-lounge atmosphere of The Performer, it’s the exquisitely slick electronic production from the Dewaele brothers and Righton’s observational lyrics that gives the track an altogether more modernist quality. Righton described the song as being about “tension and release and the dreams and fantasieswe make.”
12 | The Lounge Society | Savage Gary’s Dub The Heather Remix
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “The Lounge Society just released a surprise remix EP. With the band’s own debut EP Silk For The Starving set for release on June 18, Silk For The Starving – The Remixes offers reworkings of their two recent singles Burn The Heather and Cain’s Heresy. Contributing to the release are Savage Gary (Dan Carey), beloved Manchester post-punks A Certain Ratio, and fellow West Yorkshire indie rockers The Orielles. Carey comments on his Dub The Heather remix: “I knew I wanted to make it something upbeat – and all I kept picturing while remixing it was their faces when they heard it! Eventually I sent it to them, and they freaked out. Job done!”
13 | The Lazy Eyes | Nobody Taught Me
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “The Lazy Eyes unveil their kaleidoscopic new offering, the psychedelic ‘70s-style slow-pop ballad Nobody Taught Me. Frontman Harvey Geraghty wrote it about his summers growing up visiting grandparents in England. Harvey explains: “When I was younger, I would visit my grandparents who live in England every few years. On this one trip, I became friends with the kids who lived on my grandparents’ street. We would meet up everyday and do things that kids do like run around, have a hit with a tennis ball, play hide and seek, you know. Then the next time I went to England, I was so excited to catch up and play with them again only to find out that they had all left and moved houses. It was pretty sad but I still had a nice trip hanging out with my grandparents (who cameo in the music video).”
14 | Nightshifts | Tunnel Vision
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Nightshifts is the recording project of Toronto based songwriter Andrew Oliver. He works his magic across vintage synths, groovy guitars and drum machines during late-night recording sessions to create soulful and cosmic pop tunes. His music carries an underlying theme of imbalance and the challenge to stay present, with the musician confiding, “I very often get caught up thinking about past situations, and looking towards future ones. I write a lot about this imbalance. And ironically, the times I feel most in the moment is when I’m working on music.” Baked in optimism and rejuvenation, his latest single Tunnel Vision is a dewy springtime tune oozing in escapism. The songwriter explains his fascination with one-person production-based artists like Tame Impala, Bon Iver and Neon India, sharing, “I loved how these artists created a defined-aesthetic world around their music, and how it didn’t feel like a singer-songwriter project, but something closer to a band.”
15 | Babe Rainbow | Ready For Tomorrow
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Babe Rainbow are making music vividly respectful of the past, whilst emphatically living in the present; a confluence of sounds and sentiments from a place between yesterday and tomorrow. Ready For Tomorrow is the prophetic new single taken from new album Changing Colours, being released on May 14. Ready for Tomorrow finds the band celebrating but in a mood, saying “it’s about 21st-century life, finding relief from the stress of both the future and the past. It is about Persephone running into her mother Demeter’s comforting arms.”
16 | Plankton Wat | Nightfall
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Guitarist Dewey Mahood (ex-External Tapestry) captures the supernatural essence of the city as day turns to night, snaking guitar lines and weightless synthesiser drift soundtracking footage of driving around his Portland hometown. Mahood elaborates: “Nightfall is about the real day-to-day city we live in. I focused on documenting parks and neighborhoods around SE and downtown. This isn’t the “city on fire” as hyped in the news, but the real city we live and work in. I wanted to show the peaceful and strangely beautiful side of Portland. With the shutdown of so many businesses this past year, and people attending work and school from home, the streets and public spaces are much more quiet and meditative these days.”
17 | Subway to Sally | IX
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “When two greats of the German folk rock and medieval scene get together, there’s nothing but magic taking place. Today, Subway to Sally drop their captivating performance of the Saltatio Mortis hit IX, from the band’s upcoming live set Eisheilige Nacht: Back to Lindenpark, out June 18. They say: “Our long-time companions from Saltatio Mortis wanted us to cover the song for a bonus CD that’s part of their album Zirkus Zeitgeist (2015). After a joint tour playing the track together, we enjoyed it so much that we decided to keep it in our regular live set for some time.”
18 | Malacoda | The Harsh Law
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Malacoda stream the video for The Harsh Law, a track off their hit EP Crawling Chaos. Malacoda add: “The Harsh Law is the last track off of Crawling Chaos. It’s got a lot of groove to it and while it doesn’t have any solos I still think it’s one of the cooler guitar-based songs because of the riffs! Drums were played by Elie Bertrand, who was a real pleasure to work with. I think we had found footage of her playing a Pantera cover online somewhere and were sold on trying to get her to collaborate with us. After this, keep an eye out for another Malacoda release … this time a bit more sinister.”
https://youtu.be/_SutpR2zfSY
19 | ODC | I Love The Way You Fall
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Building a bridge between heavy metal and classic rock, France’s ODC mix various influences, creating a contagious style of modern metal. Today the band launch their track I Love The Way You Fall. Said singer Celia Do: “The video was filmed on the streets of Paris during the lockdown. Nothing can stop the music!”
