At the end of June 1972, Alice Cooper’s album School’s Out was released. In 1982, we got The Replacements’ Stink. The B-52’s Good Stuff came out in 1992. Danko Jones’ Born A Lion arrived in 2002. And Linkin Park’s Living Things was the big title of 2012. Do any of next week’s albums have the potential to be memorable decades from now? There’s only one way to find out:
Alexisonfire
Otherness
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “A continuous thread through the fabric of Alexisonfire is the state of otherness,” the band say. “Otherness drew us all to spaces where a band like this could be formed. We attract the type of individuals that have all felt the sensation of being strange or unique. Perceived or otherwise, otherness has followed us through childhood, adolescence, and into our adult lives. It drives our tastes and proclivities. It bonds us with ourselves and others. And make no mistake, even at our most domestic and mundane moments, we are true outliers.” Otherness features a mix of classic Alexisonfire and newfound textures: Dallas Green’s engaging croon; the urgent attitude of Wade MacNeil; the heavy bellow of George Pettit — all are anchored by a mix of vulnerability, confidence, iconoclasm, and celebratory recklessness. As every Alexisonfire song persistently expands and contracts, bassist Chris Steele and drummer Jordan Hastings remain impossibly tight, locked into unrelenting swinging grooves.”
The Brian Jonestown Massacre
Fire Doesn’t Grow On Trees
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Recorded in Berlin and remotely between 2020 and 2021, the band unveil their 19th full-length studio album. Fire Doesn’t Grow On Trees is the beginning of a thrilling new phase for Anton Newcombe and his band. Joining him in the studio and remotely for this album were Ricky Maymi (guitars), Ryan Carlson Van Kriedt (keyboards), Hakon Adalsteinsson (guitar), Hallberg Daði Hallbergsson (bass) and Uri Rennert (drums). Originally Newcombe was heavily influenced by The Rolling Stones’ psychedelic phase — the name comes from Stones guitarist Brian Jones, combined with a reference to cult leader Jim Jones, but his work in the 2000s has expanded into aesthetic dimensions approximating the U.K. shoegazing genre of the 1990s and incorporating influences from world music, especially Middle Eastern and Brazilian music.”
Coheed And Cambria
Vaxis II: A Window of the Waking Mind
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “If you’re a fan of basically any music genre involving a guitar, 2022 feels like a year for looking back. Depending on who you talk to the pop punk revival is in full swing, followed closely by an emo revival and possibly also a post-hardcore revival quietly (read: loudly) waiting in the wings. It would be tempting for a band like Coheed and Cambria — whose groundbreaking first album Second Stage Turbine Blade turns 20 this year — to revisit the sounds of genres they helped pioneer. But making the same album twice just isn’t in their blood. It never has been. “I’ve always thought of us as sort of the oddity, the underdog,” said frontman and guitarist Claudio Sanchez. “Why follow trends [now]? I just wanted to write a record that was right for Coheed in 2022. We’re still breaking ground.” That record is Vaxis II: A Window of the Waking Mind. It pushes the band’s sound in directions nobody could have seen coming two decades ago: from sparkling electronica to rock opera spectacle. Vaxis II also continues Coheed’s decades-spanning Amory Wars science fiction story, an undertaking that now encompasses nine albums, a multitude of comic books, novels, a trio of games, and a coffee brand. The new album serves as a sequel to multiple records in the band’s discography while retaining the accessible, emotion-packed lyrical style that turned songs like Welcome Home and A Favor House Atlantic into chart-topping radio hits.”
Ella Fitzgerald
Ella At The Hollywood Bowl: The Irving Berlin Songbook
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Ella At The Hollywood Bowl includes 15 never-before-released songs of Ella Fitzgerland performing selections of her now-classic album, Ella Fitzgerald Sings The Irving Berlin Songbook, to an adoring sold-out crowd at the Hollywood Bowl in August of ’58. Conducted and arranged by Paul Weston, who also arranged and conducted the studio sessions, this concert marked the only time that Ella performed these iconic arrangements live with a full orchestra. Discovered in the private collection of producer and Verve Records founder Norman Granz, this landmark record marks the first time a live Songbook has been released from Ella. It is also significant in that it captures the only time Ella worked in concert with Weston. And, although she performed regularly at the Hollywood Bowl, this is the first full-length concert by Ella from this iconic venue to be released (notably, Ella was featured prominently on Verve’s Jazz At The Hollywood Bowl album, recorded and released in 1956, the year Granz formed the label).”
Jack Johnson
Meet The Moonlight
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Meet The Moonlight, Jack Johnson’s eighth studio album and first full-length release in five years, was produced by Blake Mills (Alabama Shakes, Jim James) and recorded both in Los Angeles (at Sound City and EastWest) and The Mango Tree (Johnson’s studio in Hawaii). The creation process marks a major artistic milestone from past work, taking shape from a one-on-one collaboration with Mills (whose contributions included everything from fretless guitar to Moog synth to steel drums) and unveiled an intimate and highly experimental process that involved embedding Johnson’s elegantly stripped-back arrangements with enchanting sonic details. “When Blake and I first got in touch we’d send each other playlists, and over time we realized we were drawn to music that sounds effortless despite all the effort put into making it,” says Johnson. “After a while we got a language together and I gained a trust in him that allowed me to let go, push outside my comfort zone, and get to a sound I really loved.”
G. Love
Philadelphia Mississippi
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Grammy-nominated alt-blues and hip-hop artist G. Love’s latest offering Philadelphia Mississippi was produced by North Mississippi All-Stars’ Luther Dickinson — son of the late, great Jim Dickinson, who produced Love’s sophomore album Coast to Coast Motel — and unites both sides of Love’s musical inclinations by mixing old-school Hill Country and Delta Blues with contemporary hip-hop and funk. Philadelphia Mississippi is comprised of 13 songs all of which are loose, free-flowing and written in the studio during showcase G. Love’s freestyling capabilities both lyrically and sonically. The freewheeling arrangements feature guests including blues torchbearers Alvin Youngblood Hart, Cam Kimbrough, Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, Jontavious Willis, R.L. Boyce and Trenton Ayers, rap icons Schoolly D, Freddie Foxx and Speech from Arrested Development, and ace musicians such as fifemaster Sharde Thomas and Southern Avenue drummer/singer Tikyra Jackson. “I grew up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but I’ve spent my entire life steeped in the music of the Delta, so the idea that there was this whole other Philadelphia down there always fascinated me, “G. Love explained. “For the last 30 years, I’ve wanted to make a pilgrimage — not just a musical one, but a spiritual one — to the heart of the blues, and that’s exactly what this album is.”
Tijuana Panthers
Halfway to Eighty
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “In one form or another, Tijuana Panthers have existed most of its members’ lives. Daniel Michicoff (bass/vocals), Chad Wachtel (guitar/vocals), and Phil Shaheen (drums/vocals) became friends when they were teenagers in Long Beach, and started playing music together soon after, eventually becoming one of the shining stars of the 21st-century garage-rock revival scene — a (relatively) chill surf-rock-inspired complement to the ruckus of acts like Ty Segall and Thee Oh Sees. But while many of their initial contemporaries have gone through lineup changes or thrown in the towel, the Panthers are hanging tough — and, in a sense, just hitting their stride. “I feel like this was our most relaxed process yet,” says Michicoff of the band’s sixth LP Halfway to Eighty, an album whose title serves as a sly embrace of getting older, with a little bit of the Panthers’ trademark sense of humor sprinkled in there for good measure. (On the cover, they gather around their imaginary midlife-crisis Delorean.) It’s a brotherhood that’s only gotten more instinctual over time, and lately that second-nature approach has found each member taking on a more forward role in crafting their own individual songs, which the trio work out together before hitting the studio.”
The Tragically Hip
Live At The Roxy
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Prior to its inclusion on The Tragically Hip’s Road Apples 30th Anniversary Deluxe package last year, the 15-song concert captured on Live At The Roxy had not been publicly available and was a sought-after show for the bootleggers and diehard fans. Now, this legendary recording is available for the first time and as a standalone release. Originally recorded on May 3, 1991, at the iconic Los Angeles venue for a Westwood One radio show, only 40 minutes of the set was broadcasted on air at the time, making the full recording much more in demand. This renowned concert saw the band at peak performance and is considered one of the best live shows from any rock band of the era. With all tracks completely remastered in 2021 by Ted Jensen at Sterling Sound in Nashville, the album features the fan-favourite “Killer Whale Tank” version of New Orleans Is Sinking. The nine-minute track is characterized by a mid-song story from the late frontman Gord Downie about a job cleaning an aquarium and inadvertently causing friction between the two whales held in the tank.”
Wire
Not About To Die
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “The original Not About To Die was an illegal bootleg, released at some point in the early ’80s by the dubiously named Amnesia Records. The album was made up of selections from demos recorded by the group for their second and third albums: Chairs Missing and 154. These demos had been recorded for EMI, with cassette copies circulated amongst record company employees. However, they were never intended for release. Now, in a classic act of Wire perversity, the group have decided to redress the balance and reclaim one of the shadier moments of its history, by giving Not About To Die its first official release. All the tracks have been properly remastered, with the relevant recording details in place. As for the sleeve artwork, whilst it strongly references the original, it is decidedly more artful in its execution.”
