It’s a good thing you’ve got an extra day to get ready for all the new music on the way. Based on the quantity — and quality — of the releases below, you’re gonna need it. Enough jibber-jabber; let’s leap into action:
The Bevis Frond
Focus On Nature
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Focus On Nature is the new studio album from celebrated post-psyche singer songwriter Nick Saloman and his band The Bevis Frond. It features 75 minutes of glorious melodies that span ’60s psych, English folk, Seattle art-punks The Wipers, the buzzsaw pop of Dinosaur Jr. and Jimi Hendrix-esque explorations. There’s always an element of playful Englishness to their music. Like its much-praised predecessor Little Eden, the new record studies the world’s weariness but fills out a bigger canvas; fast food and global warming, broken hearts and long gone nights out, everyday immortality and being God’s gift all share space. It’s like Pete Townshend at his most thematic; Big Star in all their acoustic glory, perfectly balancing the punky garage-rock combo with David Gilmour guitar breaks that elevate it all to grandeur.”
Les Big Byrd
Diamonds, Rhinestones & Hard Rain
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Exactly where the title of Les Big Byrd’s fourth studio album came from remains mysterious even to the band’s frontman, Jocke Åhlund. You might speculate, though, that it’s a neat encapsulation of a record that is unafraid to deal in contradictions, that finds room both for glittering pop and for stormy atmosphere, and that doesn’t just showcase the thrillingly ambitious psych-rock sound that we’ve come to expect from the group by now; it pushes it forward, into new and more daring territory. After their third album, Eternal Light Brigade, took four years to follow on from 2018’s mission statement Iran Iraq IKEA, Åhlund was determined that this time, the Stockholm rockers would hit the ground running, swiftly returning to the studio for another album that maintains the momentum and energy of Eternal Light Brigade whilst finding room to wander down sonic avenues all its own.”
Brittany Davis
Image Issues
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “As a blind person I’ve never had an actual visual experience, sound is the way I’ve always seen the world.” It’s from this perspective that Seattle’s rising star Brittany Davis invites us to see life from their unique, underrepresented lens on Image Issues; a deeply candid and profoundly curated ‘audio movie’ serving as Davis’ debut full-length via Pearl Jam founder Stone Gossard’s Loosegroove Records. Emerging as a true artist to watch with 2022’s I Choose To Live EP, Davis was quickly championed by tastemakers from SXSW to NPR, who invited them to perform at the hallowed Tiny Desk. With Image Issues, Davis turns their vibrant creativity and seemingly-limitless talent to share all they’ve endured — from discrimination as a Black, non-binary, blind musician, to traumatic family experiences touching on abuse, gun violence and the prison system — as a means to honor how much they’ve already overcome and risen above.”
Bruce Dickinson
The Mandrake Project
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Renowned around the world as one of the greatest and most distinctive heavy metal vocalists of all time, Bruce Dickinson takes a break from Iron Maiden to deliver The Mandrake Project, which sees him reunited with long-time musical collaborator and producer Roy Z. The Mandrake Project will be Dickinson’s seventh solo album and his first since Tyranny Of Souls in 2005. He explains, “This album has been a very personal journey for me and I am extremely proud of it. Roy Z and I have been planning, writing and recording it for years, and I am very excited for people to finally hear it.” Across 10 inventive, expansive and absorbing tracks, Dickinson and Z have created one of 2024’s defining rock albums. Sonically heavy and rich in musical textures, it sees Dickinson bring to life a musical vision long-in-the-making, and features some of the finest vocal performances of his career.”
BrhyM
Deep Sea Vents
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “BrhyM is the collaborative project featuring Bruce Hornsby and the experimental chamber ensemble yMusic. They performed back-to-back sets at the Eaux Claires Music and Arts Festival in 2016, and afterwards Hornsby reached out to ask them to play at his Funhouse Fest the next year.. A musical exchange began, with yMusic first appearing on Hornsby’s 2019 album Absolute Zero. Deeply inspired by the collaboration, the two outfits decided to head out on the road together. The shows occurred in February and March 2020, ending right before Covid, shutdown, and planted the seed of what has become Deep Sea Vents. Each night they performed as an encore a song they had composed together which ultimately became the album’s title track. With the lock-down freeing up everyone’s schedules, yMusic and Hornsby resumed writing together remotely in the fall.”
Liam Gallagher & John Squire
Liam Gallagher & John Squire
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Collaborations don’t get much more biblical than this. Solo star, Oasis legend and force-of-nature Liam Gallagher has teamed up with John Squire, one of the most influential guitarists and songwriters of his generation via his time with The Stone Roses. The duo will set a high watermark for 2024 when they release their self-titled debut. While this represents the duo’s first collaboration together, the first time they were in a room together was way back in 1989. The then 16-year-old Liam attended a Stone Roses gig at the International 2 in Manchester around the time their self-titled debut album was released, a show that he describes simply as “life-changing.” It was another four years before they met when both bands were recording in Monmouth, Wales: Oasis had just started work on what would become Definitely Maybe while The Stone Roses were deep into sessions for The Second Coming. But it wasn’t until John jumped on stage at Liam’s gargantuan Knebworth Park show for climactic performances of Champagne Supernova that the prospect of working together on something more substantial became a reality.”
Kaiser Chiefs
Kaiser Chiefs’ Easy Eighth Album
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Almost two decades in the game, and armed with an extensive back-catalogue of stadium belters, and record-breaking success, Kaiser Chiefs return with their brand new studio album, the aptly titled Kaiser Chiefs’ Easy Eighth Album. Produced by Amir Amor (Rudimental), the album sees the Kaiser Chiefs return with a fresh and bold new sound. From the Nile Rodgers co-write of new single Feeling Alright, to the frantic Beautiful Girl, horn-laden throwback Job Centre Shuffle and joyous punch in the gut that is Jealousy, these 10 tracks are a true statement of intent from a band that continues to deliver the goods again and again.”
Mannequin Pussy
I Got Heaven
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Mannequin Pussy’s music feels like a resilient and galvanizing shout that demands to be heard. Across four albums, the Philadelphia rock band that consists of Colins “Bear” Regisford (bass, vocals), Kaleen Reading (drums, percussion), Maxine Steen (guitar, synths) and Marisa Dabice (guitar, vocals) has made cathartic tunes about despairing times. “There’s just so much constantly going on that feels intentionally evil that trying to make something beautiful feels like a radical act,” says Dabice. “The ethos of this band has always been to bring people together.” Their latest I Got Heaven is the band’s most fully realized LP yet. Over 10 ambitious tracks which abruptly turn from searing punk to inviting pop, the album is deeply concerned with desire, the power in being alone, and how to live in an unfeeling and unkind world. It’s a document of a band doubling down on their unshakable bond to make something furious, thrilling, and wholly alive.”
Master Peace
How To Make A Master Peace
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Peace Okezie, the mastermind behind Master Peace, does not mince his words. He needs to get things out and embodies the phrase, “If you’re going to say it, just say it.” While never careless or unsympathetic with his words, the phrase is an affirmation that fuels him. Lucky for us, his energy is on par with the idiosyncratic, effervescent and most importantly, extremely good music he makes with intention and a keen ear. Master Peace’s music is about inviting people into the weird, wonderful and cacophonous world he’s created. Attracting listeners who crave rebelliousness and divergence from the norm. His debut album How To Make A Master Peace pushes the parameters of genre more than ever. Peace flexes his inspirations by cutting through the sonic generations of British music that have raised him.”
Ministry
Hopiumforthemasses
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Regimes rise and fall. Stars shine and fade. Trends come and go. Ministry live on. The six-time Grammy-nominated multiplatinum juggernaut founded and fronted by Al Jourgensen have seeped through the darkest corners of popular culture and infected the mainstream for over four decades, gleefully spewing sonic bile between the cracks of the system’s facade. Born in the ’80s, they survived the ’90s, weathered the turn-of-the-century, and even held on through a goddamn pandemic. However, Ministry show no signs of stopping or slowing down — even for a breath. Instead, the band — Uncle Al, John Bechdel (keyboards), Monte Pittman (guitar), Cesar Soto (guitar), Roy Mayorga (drums) and Paul D’Amour (bass) — crank out another blast of anthemic industrial metal on its 2023 opus and sixteenth full-length LP Hopiumforthemasses. The guitars rip, the drums rumble, and Al’s as righteously cantankerous as ever about a fucked up world ripe for a boot up its ass.”
Pissed Jeans
Half Divorced
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Pissed Jeans have never been a band that goes halfway — they’re known for their feral vocals, biting lyrics, buzzsaw guitars, and unhinged live shows, and their sixth album, Half Divorced is no exception. These songs skewer the tension between youthful optimism and the sobering realities of adulthood, and when viewed through frontman Matt Korvette’s scowl, everything takes on a level of violent absurdity. Pissed Jeans’ notorious acerbic sense of humor remains sharper than ever as they dismember some of the joys that contemporary adult life has to offer, from helicopter parents to stolen catalytic converters to being $62,000 in debt. Korvette said, “Half Divorced has an aggression within it, in terms of saying, I don’t want this reality. There’s a power in being able to say, I realize you want me to pay attention to these things, but I’m telling you that they don’t matter. I’m already looking elsewhere.”
Daniel Romano’s Outfit
Too Hot To Sleep
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Daniel Romano has been busy. Count the many hungry mornings at the post. Since the release of the massive, singular, La Luna in those long ago days of autumn 2022, full brilliant albums have been made and set aside (maybe two, maybe more), vast landscapes have been crossed and re-crossed, the maps redrawn, songs remade nightly with passion and gusto. Now here, in the depths of northern winter, arrives Too Hot To Sleep, simultaneously a transcendent document of the spirit, and a swaggering, street level blast of power-pop and Stones-derived rock ’n’ roll; a surprisingly direct shout down of the corrupt politicians and techno fascists that police our bodies, pollute our world, assault our connections; a reason and occasion to dance, to sweat together at one of The Outfit’s legendary live shows wherein everything comes faster than the next, no breaks, no outside, there is only now, there is only all of us here together, alive. A public offering of each to each.”
Sheer Mag
Playing Favorites
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Sheer Mag have labored to carve out a discernibly singular position within the canon of contemporary rock: toggling with ease between the refined flourishes of a “connoisseur’s band” and the ecstatic colloquialism of populist songwriting — yet displaying no strict loyalty to either camp — their sound, while oft-referenced, is unmistakably and immediately recognizable as theirs alone. On Playing Favorites, Sheer Mag’s third full-length and first with Third Man Records, the band capitalize on a decade’s worth of devotion to their own collective spirit — a spirit refined in both the sweaty trenches of punk warehouses and the larger-than-life glamour of concert halls — emerging with a dense work of gripping emotions, massive hooks, and masterfully constructed power-pop anthems. This is the record the Philadelphian rock and roll four-piece has always been destined to make.”
Vegas DeMilo
Black Sheep Lodge
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Riff-driven power pop outfit Vegas DeMilo have announced the release of Black Sheep Lodge, their shimmering fourth album which one writer described as “The Replacements fronted by Liam Gallagher.” It’s an apt comparison as the expertly produced collection displays its 90s grit while also exhibiting the songwriting finesse of Paul Westerberg and Jeff Tweedy clamoring against the dramatic tension of Oasis anthems. With a nod to their formation in the mid ’90s and as a playful exercise, the blistering songs on Black Sheep Lodge are a taut affirm while also loose complement to Liz Phair’s 1993 classic Exile in Guyville, which itself was a song-by-song retort to The Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main Street. For their “response” to Guyville, Vegas DeMilo cunningly inhabits the clueless, bro-anointed “Guy” that Phair was mocking. Black Sheep Lodge would most assuredly be the frat house hangout in Guyville.”
Yard Act
Where’s My Utopia?
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Co-produced with Gorillaz member Remi Kabaka Jr., Yard Act’s new album Where’s My Utopia? follows the Leeds band’s lauded debut, 2022’s The Overload, and this year’s much-lauded single The Trench Coat Museum. Since the release of The Overload, frontman and vocalist James Smith, bassist Ryan Needham, guitarist Sam Shjipstone and drummer Jay Russell have become one of the most exciting indie success stories of this decade. Written in snapshots of time in the midst of touring, the album is a giant leap forward into broad and playful new sonic waters, sprinkled with strings, choirs, and voice-acting clips courtesy of comedian pals Nish Kumar, Rose Matafe and more. It was a communal four-way effort built on chemistry, familiarity and the trust to challenge and push each other creatively. “The main reason that ‘post-punk’ was the vehicle for Album One was because it was really affordable to do, but we always liked so much other music and this time we’ve had the confidence to embrace it,” James explains. Across the record, influences range from Fela Kuti to Ennio Moricone.”
