As Dee Snider and Twisted Sister told us, you can’t stop rock ’n’ roll. Especially not at this time of year. And as another 600-plus albums, singles, EPs, compilations and whatnot roll down the assembly line, I’m like Lucy in the chocolate factory, trying to wolf down as many as I can. Here are the tastiest treats I came across:
The OBGMs
Sorry It’s Over
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “The OBGMs fuse punk, rock, and hip-hop into an electrifying sound that’s garnered critical acclaim. Known for their ferocious live performances, they’ve shared stages with heavyweights like Death From Above, Pup and Alexisonfire. Their explosive energy and genre-defying approach make them a force to be reckoned with, poised to leave an indelible mark on the music scene and captivate audiences worldwide with their raw, unapologetic style. “Our goal with this album was to go deeper,” frontman Densil McFarlane says. “We wanted to make something that felt bigger than ourselves, I went to therapy and wanted to make something that feels like therapy for anyone who listens. We’ve always been a band about raw energy, but this time we wanted to share our soul.”
Pixies
The Night The Zombies Came
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Some 35 years since their groundbreaking platinum-certified album Doolittle catapulted the band into the U.K. Top 10, and 20 years since their celebrated reformation, Pixies are deep into their second act, and in the midst of a creative purple patch. The Night The Zombies Came is Pixies’ 10th album (if you count their classic 1987 mini-LP Come On Pilgrim) and first new music since 2022’s acclaimed Doggerel LP. It has 13 new songs that find Pixies looking ahead with the most cinematic record of their career. Druidism, apocalyptic shopping malls, mediaeval-themed restaurants, 12th-century poetic form, surf rock, gargoyles, bog people, and the distinctive dry drum sound of 1970s-era Fleetwood Mac are just some of the disparate wonders that inform the new songs.”
Pom Pom Squad
Mirror Starts Moving Without Me
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Early in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll’s title character quickly loses all sense of self. “Who in the world am I?” she wonders. “Ah, that’s the great puzzle.” Pom Pom Squad’s Mia Berrin has had that question tumbling around her head too — due to the endless feedback and expectations since releasing her sublime debut album Death Of A Cheerleader in 2021, rather than any enchanted cake. “Receiving attention, negative or positive, left me feeling very fragmented, constantly thinking about other people’s perceptions,” Berrin says. “At a certain point I felt like I couldn’t even control my own reflection. All these different versions of me were swimming around in people’s heads and on the internet, eclipsing the real me.” And on Pom Pom Squad’s sophomore LP, aptly titled Mirror Starts Moving Without Me, Berrin traverses the hall of mirrors to celebrate the true self at the heart.”
Chuck Prophet With ¿Qiensave?
Wake The Dead
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Wake The Dead is California singer, songwriter, guitarist, and producer Chuck Prophet’s new collaborative album with Cumbia group ¿Qiensave? An extraordinary and unlikely pairing, Prophet and ¿Qiensave? blend seamlessly together as the collection dives headfirst into the world of Cumbia music, which consumed and comforted Prophet during a recent bout with stage four lymphoma and subsequent recovery. The result is a profoundly adventurous celebration of life that balances hope and fear in equal measure, a rich and exultant meditation on what really matters from an artist who always manages to find the light, even in the face of the most oppressing darkness. The songs are intoxicatingly rhythmic, all but demanding you move your body while you listen, with arrangements that blur the lines between tradition and innovation, between past and present, between cultures and countries. There are flashes of rock and roll, punk, surf, and soul, all filtered through the streets of San Francisco and wrapped up in the rich legacy of a genre that traces its roots back hundreds of years and thousands of miles.”
The Quireboys
Wardour Street
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Formed in the mid-’80s in London, The Quireboys quickly established themselves on the thriving rock ’n’ roll scene of Soho, Camden and beyond. Always a great live band, they were, perfecting their style and selling out the legendary Marquee Club and venues around the country long before they made a record, and when they finally released their first album A Bit Of What You Fancy, what an album it was. Reaching No. 2 on the U.K. chart, it featured many of the songs they had been playing live since the beginning. The second album Bitter, Sweet And Twisted followed in 1993, after which the band entered a hiatus. Now in 2024, The Quireboys release Wardour Street. Spike, Nigel, Chris and Rudy have kept true to their promise of making new Quireboys music after the sad passing of their best mate Guy Bailey. Stepping in on guitar is one of their oldest friends, Luke Morley from Thunder, who has also produced the album. The album consists of 11 new original songs with that stripped-down Quireboys sound that hasn’t been heard since their first two albums.”
Chuck Ragan
Love & Lore
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “I’m always trying to do something different because I feel like if we’re not searching, we’re not learning,” says folk troubadour, punk pioneer, and fly-fisherman extraordinaire Chuck Ragan about his new album Love And Lore. “My writing approach seems to be whatever the song needs or wherever the song takes you, just let it breathe.” That sums up his fiery first solo collection in a decade as well as his career as co-frontman of perennial punk band Hot Water Music and a legendary solo artist. Always pushing boundaries and defying genres, Chuck’s music constantly strives for and, more importantly, achieves the rare distinction of being both groundbreaking yet feeling quite distinctly Chuck. His single, the fiery rocker Wild In Our Ways, is a perfect example. The chiming guitar attack that launches the track sounds harder than most of Chuck’s solo material, but the second his instantly recognizable and road-worn vocals enter the picture, it drapes you with that comforting Chuck Ragan™ warmth, like a flannel blanket around a campfire.”
Razorlight
Planet Nowhere
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Razorlight were at the forefront of the indie-rock resurgence of the early 2000s, their biggest moments — Golden Touch, Somewhere Else, In The Morning, America and Wire To Wire — driving three Top Five albums, nine platinum album certifications, an NME Award, and more. After reuniting for live shows in 2021, the classic lineup — Johnny Borrell (vocals/guitar), Björn Ågren (guitar), Carl Dalemo (bass) and Andy Burrows (drums) — are back with their new album Planet Nowhere, their first together since 2008. As the ever-ambitious Johnny challenged himself after their reunion tour, “Who wants to be a greatest hits band?” So he hatched a plan, and late in 2023 booked a five-day session with the legendary producer Youth (The Verve, James) at his Space Mountain studio in Spain. Youth knew what they had to achieve, telling the band, “Razorlight’s quite simple isn’t it? Just a driving bassline, driving drums and a story.”
Smoker Dad
Hotdog Highway
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Seeded from the land of grassroots touring and fueled by junk food, gas station pit stops, and tearing down trucker towns, comes the sophomore album from Seattle rockers Smoker Dad. Hotdog Highway is a 10-track true rock ’n’ roll record that captures the home-baked humorous yet heartfelt essence of the six-piece band. Smoker Dad includes musical brothers Trevor Conway on vocals and guitar and Teagen Conway on lead guitar, Chris King on keys and vocals, Derek Luther on bass, Adam Knowles on drums, and Chris Costalupes on pedal-steel guitar. “Most of the songs are about love or struggling with sobriety but they all stem from touring,” Trevor says. “It’s lonely on the road and the mind runs. Hotdog Highway is about trying to deal with that while still pulling through for the show every night. Smoker Dad is a big band and sometimes we’d be touring with seven or eight folks all in one van. We were so crammed in there, we would say ‘like hotdogs down the highway’ and it just became this continuous joke.”
Soccer Mommy
Evergreen
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Sophie Allison has always written candidly about her life, making Soccer Mommy one of indie rock’s most interesting and beloved artists of the last decade. Allison has used Soccer Mommy’s songs as a vehicle to sort through the thoughts and encounters that inevitably come with the reality of growing up. After all, Soccer Mommy began as a bedroom-to-Bandcamp exercise with teenage Allison posting her plaintive songs as demos. Over the years, though, she has often enhanced that sound, using the endless production possibilities, newly at her fingertips, to outstrip singer-songwriter stereotypes. The records would start with songwriting’s kernels of truth, and she would then imagine all the unexpected shapes they could take. Every Soccer Mommy record has felt like a surprise. On her fourth album, the tender but resolute Evergreen, Allison is again writing about her life. But that life’s different these days: Since making her previous album, 2022’s Sometimes, Forever, Allison experienced a profound and also very personal loss. New songs emerged from that change, unflinching and sometimes even funny reflections on what she was feeling. These songs were, once again, Allison’s way to sort through life, to ground herself. She wanted them to sound that way, too, to feel as true to the demos — raw and relatable, unvarnished and honest — as possible.”
Squint
Big Hand
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Big Hand — in reference to the constant moving of time on a clock — can gather a sense of anxiety, excitement, hope and hopelessness. In a more literal sense, a big hand can pack a punch, swell, break and recover. The St. Louis hardcore-punk band Squint render their perspective through their debut album, Big Hand, by a summation of decades of influences of punk, hardcore, alternative and art-rock. With the collaboration of producer Jon Markson (Samiam, Drain, The Story So Far) and much touring, Squint have developed their sound and presence to their fullest potential. Building on top of the Squint’s ringing guitar melodies, they’ve crafted larger choruses than before, while still staying true to their core. Lyrically, vocalist Brennen Wilkinson poetically exhibits his frustrations with time and growth while facing obstacles that result in getting stuck in the same routines — it’s a constant push and pull of progression and regression. Wilkinson’s distinctive voice is shouted on each song, expressed in angst, but also hope. In the closing, self-titled track Big Hand, Squint builds on a slow tempo to fast hook, and lyrics shift from a sense of emptiness to an aspiration to take back control of time — or the Big Hand.”
Underworld
Strawberry Hotel
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Welcome to Strawberry Hotel. Here, gleaming tensile techno forms clean, straight lines while scratchy acoustic guitars scuff up edges to produce ghostly audio. Poetry is snatched from the overhead, removed from the overheard; words borrowed from the ether are spun into dizzying new shapes, sometimes reappearing in new settings, twisted back to front, side to side. Each track a very different room — some soundtracked by little more than metronomic kick drum and robotic voice, others deep in layer upon layer of melody and euphoric noise — and each room unmistakably, uniquely Underworld. The only advice from Underworld’s Rick Smith and Karl Hyde upon entering: “Please don’t shuffle.”
Yerba Mansa
Gravity’s Joke
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “As the heppest of you undoubtedly know, Yerba Mansa are Edwin Stevens (guitar) and Andrew Cheetham (drums) as well as both been members of Desmadrados Soldados de Ventura, and are purveyors of raging, mind-bending primitive garage infused Middle-Eastern free-rock psychedelia. Showcased here is Edwin’s mesmerizing guitar playing, capable of conjuring sonic specters from thin air and Andrew’s limitless drumming, rooted in jazz and totally mesmerizing in fluidity and movement as contained within Gravity’s Joke the grooves are some of the most fierce apocalyptic and heady jams you will hear this year. Yerba Mansa whirl up demonic raga meltdowns which showcase their individual chops and duo telepathy, the guitar vernacular is pure Sharrock / Flower / Quine – indeed the tuning sounds like it could be ostrich; while the drumming is more octopus. Sizzling, stifling and ever so slightly ear-scraping – this is a must for any lover of untamed music. This ain’t an album, it’s some kind of ritual.”
