You don’t need me to tell you that Adele’s new album arrives next week. Hell, I’ll be amazed if you can manage to avoid it in the coming days and weeks. But I’m more than willing to try — and here are some other fine artists who are more than happy to help, I suspect:
The Darkness
Motorheart
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Drop the needle anywhere on Motorheart and be instantly transported from this moaning and weeping vale of tears to Elysian fields of rock where all hands are raised, the drinks — just as in the Club Tropicana of yore — are free, and everyone wears a pleasingly salacious grin. Does it rock? Is the sun hot? Has your partner’s touch grown cold? The Darkness are the Orwellian boot stamping on the flaccid face of limp rock, forever! Justin Hawkins comments, “The time has come, the walrus said… to put your fookin pants on your head and rock like Satan is eating your private parts with a pointy fork!”
Deap Vally
Marriage
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Deap Vally are the L.A. duo of Lindsey Troy and Julie Edwards. Their third album Marriage follows the success of their acclaimed 2013 debut Sistrionix and 2016’s Femejism, as well as the band’s 2020 LP with Flaming Lips as Deap Lips, a hook-up which fired up the band’s passion for collaboration, which continues on Marriage. “Being in a band is like being in a marriage,” they say. “Sometimes it’s magical, sometimes it’s unbearably challenging. To reinvigorate that marriage we’ve made album three a genre-bending experiment with new collaborators and instrumentation that push the limits of what has previously defined us. Marriage is our musical Rumspringa, if you will. We’re breaking free of the rigid creative constraints within which we previously existed (two members, two instruments, two voices). Writing with the calibre of musicians that we did on this record — like jennylee, KT Tunstall, Peaches and Jennie Vee – was an unforgettable experience, and we’re so happy to have the result of our creative rebirth eternalised in Marriage.”
Dion
Stomping Ground
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Dion is following up his critically acclaimed and commercially successful 2020 album Blues With Friends with Stomping Ground, a new album that finds him collaborating yet again with music greats with whom he shares mutual admiration. Most of the album’s songs were written by Dion and his songwriting partner Mike Aquilina. Guest artists appearing include Boz Scaggs, Mark Knopfler, Eric Clapton, Peter Frampton, Patti Scialfa, Bruce Springsteen, Billy F Gibbons, Keb’ Mo’, Sonny Landreth, Joe Menza, Mike Menza, Marcia Ball, Jimmy Vivino, Rickie Lee Jones, Wayne Hood, Joe Bonamassa and G.E. Smith, with liner notes by none other than Pete Townshend.” Says Dion: “When I was young, I was always striving for accolades and admiration. Those were my goals. But when I reached them, they didn’t satisfy. I discovered joy when I leaned to stop caring about all that — when I learned to relax and make music with friends… music that would make more friends for us through its joy. To make music with friends, and to make friends through music: I can’t imagine a better life than this. I am grateful to my friends who made Stomping Ground with me — and my new friends who are listening.”
Eagles of Death Metal
Presents A Boots Electric Christmas
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Eagles Of Death Metal’s Jesse “Boots Electric” Hughes join forces to gift us all with A Boots Electric Christmas, a six-track EP sure to bring much needed holiday cheer to the ears and hearts of every little girl and boy. The EP will be available on CD and all digital formats. Hughes puts his signature aural alter-ego Boots Electric stamp on a half-dozen electrified interpretations of perennial holiday classics that include God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, Put A Little Love In Your Heart, O Holy Night, Little Drummer Boy and Little Town Of Bethlehem. The sonic highlight rounding out the EP is an extraordinary, and quite stirring, a cappella rendition of O Holy Night featuring Hughes and EODM bandmate Joshua Homme on vocals. Says Hughes: “Just a few songs to warm your heart during Christmas time. I hope you like them. May Christmas bring peace to you all. Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, I love you, and God bless you all.”
Elbow
Flying Dream 1
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Now in their third decade as a band, Elbow wrote Flying Dream 1 remotely in their home studios before coming together at the empty Brighton Theatre Royal to perfect, perform, and record the songs. A film crew covered the final recording sessions for a forthcoming documentary. Singer Guy Garvey says of the unique recording location: “Hiring a 200-year-old theatre that has never in its history been closed for so long was something that could only be done under the circumstances … nice to turn it on its head in that way. Recording in a splendid generous space with no audience was something that throws an anchor in the times that the record was made in.”
Kiss
Destroyer 45th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Celebrating its 45th anniversary, Destroyer was originally released in 1976 and is considered to be one of the quintessential KISS albums. It is the band’s first album to sell one million copies in its first year and holds the title of being their all-time best selling studio album. It’s packed with concert staples favorites including Detroit Rock City, Shout It Out Loud, God Of Thunder and Beth. The album also showed the band’s growth as musicians and songwriters, experimenting with new sounds which came in the form of the softer side of songs like Do You Love Me?, and songs heavy with orchestral arrangements including Great Expectations and their Billboard No. 7 hit single Beth. Following the breakthrough success of 1975’s No. 9 Billboard charting Alive!, Destroyer was the KISS album that brought them to the forefront of the mainstream and transformed them into global rock icons. For its anniversary, the band celebrates this seminal album’s legacy with a five-disc box featuring staggering amount of bonus material and memorabilia.”
Robert Plant and Alison Krauss
Raise The Roof
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Raise The Roof finds Rock And Roll Hall of Famer Robert Plant and 27-time Grammy-winner Alison Krauss reunited after 14 years, following the historic success of their 2007 collaboration Raising Sand, which debuted at No. 2 in Billboard, generated platinum sales, and earned six Grammy Awards including Album Of The Year and Record of the Year. Like its predecessor, Raise The Roof was produced by T Bone Burnett, who worked with Plant and Krauss to expand their collaboration in thrilling new directions, accompanied by drummer Jay Bellerose, guitarists Marc Ribot, David Hidalgo, Bill Frisell, and Buddy Miller, bassists Dennis Crouch and Viktor Krauss, along with pedal steel guitarist Russ Pahl, among others. The album features 12 new recordings of songs by legends and unsung heroes including Merle Haggard, Allen Toussaint, The Everly Brothers, Anne Briggs, Geeshie Wiley, Bert Jansch and more. Other highlights include the Plant-Burnett original High and Lonesome, and the classic Can’t Let Go, first recorded by Lucinda Williams.”
Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band
The Legendary 1979 No Nukes Concerts
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “The Legendary 1979 No Nukes Concerts features 10 never-before released performances by Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band from the Madison Square Garden MUSE benefit concerts, and full footage of the band’s entire setlist for the first time. Edited by longtime Springsteen collaborator Thom Zimny from the original 16mm film alongside remixed audio from Bob Clearmountain, The Legendary 1979 No Nukes Concerts represent the highest quality and best-recorded Springsteen performances from an explosive, ascendant and rarely-filmed era of The E Street Band. Among the highlights are then-unreleased versions of The River and Sherry Darling, live staples Badlands, Born To Run and Thunder Road, plus covers of Buddy Holly’s Rave On and a version of Maurice Williams’ Stay featuring special guests Jackson Browne, Tom Petty and Rosemary Butler.”
Sting
The Bridge
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “The Bridge showcases Sting’s prolific and diverse songwriting prowess, with this new set of songs representing styles and genres explored throughout his unrivalled career. The Bridge was written in a year of global pandemic and finds Sting ruminating on personal loss, separation, disruption, lockdown, and extraordinary social and political turmoil. Exploring a multitude of concepts and themes, a “bridge” represents the enduring and ever-evolving link between ideas, cultures, continents, and even the banks of a river. It’s also a route into the past, and so it was that Sting found himself considering the music and the places that have formed his own foundations, and that indeed are embedded in his very DNA. He explains, “These songs are between one place and another, between one state of mind and another, between life and death, between relationships. Between pandemics, and between eras – politically, socially and psychologically, all of us are stuck in the middle of something. We need a bridge.”
Brian Wilson
At My Piano
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Icon and trailblazer Brian Wilson spearheaded a musical revolution as founding member of The Beach Boys. The band, since 1961, have epitomised the sound of California, surfing, and sunshine. Now, Brian a true musical legend returns to his rich catalogue of hits and performs these historically popular songs in their purest form — just Brian, alone with his piano. At My Piano is a deeply relaxing collection of memorable songs that includes God Only Knows, Wouldn’t it Be Nice, California Girls, Good Vibrations and many more, performed with the lucid clarity that a solo piano composition creates. A perfect album for sunsets and golden days. “We had an upright piano in our living room and from the time I was 12 years old I played it each and every day,” he says. “I never had a lesson, I was completely self-taught. I can’t express how much the piano has played such an important part in my life. It has bought me comfort, joy and security. It has fuelled my creativity as well as my competitive nature. I play it when I’m happy or feeling sad. I love playing for people and I love playing alone when no one is listening. Honestly, the piano and the music I create on it has probably saved my life.”
Frank Zappa
200 Motels 50th Anniversary Edition
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Released in October 1971, Frank Zappa’s 200 Motels was a miraculous feat, a cinematic collision of the venerated musician and composer’s kaleidoscopic musical and visual worlds that brought together Zappa and his band, The Mothers, Ringo Starr as Zappa — as “a large dwarf” — Keith Moon as a perverted nun, Pamela Des Barres in her acting debut, noted thespian Theodore Bikel, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and an incredible assortment of characters (both on screen and off) for a “surrealistic documentary” about the bizarre life of a touring musician. In celebration of 200 Motels’ golden anniversary, the soundtrack is being reissued in a definitive six-disc box set that includes a staggering amount of unreleased and rare material unearthed from FZ’s vault, including original demos, studio outtakes, work mixes, interviews and movie ads, along with newly discovered dialog reels, revealing an early audio edit of the film. Also included is a wealth of never-before-heard audio documentary material surrounding the project.”
