Some say music is the food of love. If that’s true, you’ve got an all-you-eat buffet heading your way in time for Valentine’s Day. Feast your eyes and ears on these platters — and don’t forget to save room for dessert:
Gavin McLeod
The Constant Astonishment
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Gavin McLeod is a 25-year-old rock artist from Toronto. A multi-talented singer-songwriter and guitarist, Gavin began playing music at just 10 years old. His passion led him from early gigs and festivals to forming a band with close friends, who now accompany him in creating vibrant, live-off-the-floor recordings. Blending heartfelt lyricism with infectious melodies, Gavin draws inspiration from a range of influences — spanning 1970s singer-songwriters to modern U.K. indie rock. In 2019, he made his debut with the EP The Hollow, setting the stage for his album The Constant Astonishment, produced by industry veteran Ross Hayes Citrullo. The album showcases Gavin’s dynamic songwriting, his band’s natural chemistry, and a fusion of alt-country, pop rock, and ’90s Brit-rock energy.”
Oracle Sisters
Divinations
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “In their new album Divinations, Oracle Sisters delve into their love of Talking Heads, Richard Hawley, Air, Suicide (the band), ’80s Leonard Cohen, early Johnny Cash, some New Order and some Chet Baker. Sounds from toy drum machines and the novelty of swapping their main instruments between themselves and writing parts on the OP-1 set the direction. A baby Casio keyboard or an old-fashioned guitar became friends. The imagery inspired by the zeitgeist of their times with flashes of news cycles, scrolling cultures, lyrics and information like pastiches and collages… the tea leaves of language, meaning as consistent as the roll of a dice became the lyrical blueprint. Amongst all these stories emerge the human heart freeing itself like a fly from a cobweb. In that flutter of inspiration a song is sung.”
Frank Rabeyrolles
In Conversations
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “In the end, little is known about Frank Rabeyrolles. A discreet character and an unclassifiable type of the French music scene, he got noticed in 2004 with Life Behind The Window, the first album of his project Double U. His dreamy and hybrid music, oscillating between pop, electronic and songwriting, surprises and seduces. A prolific and insatiable artist, Frank Rabeyrolles released a solid succession of albums as Double U and then Franklin. At the end of 2011, he released his first album under his real name. The sequel arrived in 2021 with A Ghost By The Sea, a record that asserts itself as Ambient, also endowed with a melodic and contemplative obsession that has been a trademark since its beginnings. In early 2024, he returned to the solitary work of the home to cultivate a gentle schizophrenia between tenderness, sound roundness, echoes, spleen and hopes. The result is In Conversations, built around acoustic guitars and discreetly electronic textures. It is a lo-fi album — sometimes classical, sometimes bedroom oriented, sometimes melancholic and sometimes joyful.”
Rizzle Kicks
Competition Is For Losers
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Rizzle Kicks’ new album, Competition Is For Losers, features a dynamic collection of 14 tracks showcasing the duo’s newly refined sound. Marking their first album release in over a decade, they delve into themes of evolution, growth, and maturity. The project sees them return to the pop music space sober, both in love and equipped with life lessons, self-awareness and self development they’ve built on separately — all the while retaining their sense of humour that always set them apart from other artists. “We allude to the fact that we acted off the cultural encouragement and the reality of the time”, says Jordan, “I think now we’d like to believe that we’ve distanced ourselves from those just through experience”. Themes on this album include sobriety: “Not in a prescriptive way. But more like we did a lot of crazy stuff, but now we don’t”, and paternity: “not just with Harley becoming a father and all the growth that comes with that role, but also in a larger sense as we get older we feel a responsibility to share our wins and our failures”.
Spiders
Sharp Objects
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Swedish rock band Spiders are ready to carve a new chapter in rock history. Sharp Objects brings together shattered dreams, lofty visions, and the raw essence of rock ’n’ roll, creating an album that’s both nostalgic and fiercely modern. As with their previous releases, Spiders’ sound is deeply rooted in classic rock. However, Sharp Objects offers something fresh, weaving in influences from the early ’80s new wave and garage-rock scene. This album takes listeners on a sonic journey — from the legendary Truckstop Alaska in Gothenburg, across New York’s iconic Bleecker Street, through London’s vibrant Soho, and back again. Along the way, you’ll encounter a musical landscape where the spirit of bands like Faces, The Dead Boys, Fred Cole and Bikini Kill lives on, while a rebellious Debbie Harry gives a defiant nod to the present.”
Bartees Strange
Horror
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Bartees Strange was raised on fear. His family told him scary stories to teach life lessons, and at an early age, he started watching scary movies to practice being strong. The world can be a terrifying place, and for a young, queer, Black person in rural America, that terror can be visceral. Horror is an album about facing those fears and growing to become someone to be feared. Horror began at Strange’s home studio with an eye toward production. A session with Yves and Lawrence Rothman (Yves Tumor, Lady Gaga) provided a rhythmic and sonic backbone for chunks of the record. After Strange met Jack Antonoff and the pair became fast friends, Antonoff began work on Horror. The twosome finished the record together, working the songs raw, editing, arranging, and dressing them up in clothing bound to inspire fear. Throughout the record, Strange lays down one difficult truth after another, all over a sonic pastiche of music that soundtracked his childhood. Across the album’s 12 new tracks are genre-bending threads of the music his dad introduced him to — Parliament Funkadelic, Fleetwood Mac and Teddy Pendergrass — merged with Strange’s interest in hip-hop, country, indie rock, and house.”
The Third Mind
Live Mind
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “What started four years ago as a wishful music fantasy, the supergroup of California psychedelic rockers is now a reality. The brainchild of Grammy-winning guitarist Dave Alvin and veteran alternative music bassist Victor Krummenacher (Camper Van Beethoven, Monks of Doom, Eyelids), The Third Mind’s two studio albums — The Third Mind (2020) and The Third Mind 2 (2023) — feature guitarist David Immerglück (Counting Crows, Monks of Doom, Camper Van Beethoven), drummer Michael Jerome (Richard Thompson, Better Than Ezra, John Cale) and vocalist Jesse Sykes (The Sweeter Hereafter). The Third Mind’s live psychedelic improv performances include the addition of guest guitarist Mark Karan (Bob Weir’s Ratdog, Phil Lesh, Delaney Bramlett) subbing for Immerglück. With over an hour of performances, Live Mind was overseen and curated from shows in February and March 2024 in Los Angeles, Ventura and Dallas.”
The Velveteers
A Million Knives
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “After spending their teens developing a distinctively badass amalgam of punk attitude, old-school metal thunder, and gutter-glam charisma, The Velveteers are using the obsessions of their adolescence to soundtrack the messy emotions of adulthood. The Boulder trio’s second album, A Million Knives, chronicles the volatile truth of being an artist in the music industry while still clinging to the joy they felt when they were just learning their instruments. “When you’re a kid, you just have a natural curiosity,” says singer/guitarist Demi Demitro. “As you grow older, the world makes you jaded. This album is about the hard truth that no matter how hard you protect your heart, it’s just going to be broken.” An even harder truth: Often you’re the one breaking it. Or, as Demi puts it, “Sometimes you realize that you’re the one stabbing yourself in the heart with a million knives.”
The War And Treaty
Plus One
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “On The War And Treaty’s fourth full-length album Plus One, husband and wife duo, Michael and Tanya Trotter double down on the powerful sense of togetherness that has always fueled their music, offering up 18 life-affirming songs aimed at providing a shared experience of hope and healing and much-needed joy. “We see this record as an open invitation to be a part of what we’re doing — it came from wanting to be the hope we believe people need right now, as well as the hope that we need for ourselves,” Tanya shares. Adds Michael: “One of our main intentions with this album is to inspire people to share themselves with others, and open themselves up to the possibility of being loved.” Mainly produced by Michael and recorded at the legendary FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, Plus One is the followup to 2023’s Lover’s Game — which earned them Grammy nominations for Best American Roots Song and Best New Artist. Made in collaboration with producers like Jonathan Singleton (Luke Combs, Chase Rice), John Shanks (Stevie Nicks, Sheryl Crow) and Jesse Frasure (Jelly Roll, Kelsea Ballerini), the result is a transcendent album firmly rooted in their timeless musicality and forward-thinking vision.”
Rusty Williams
Grand Man
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “At 78 years old, Rusty Williams will release Grand Man thanks to the help of his granddaughter Hayley Williams and her Paramore bandmates — but his musical journey has been a long time coming. Rusty was a lifelong lover of music, having written songs and joined a band in his earlier years. In fact, his talents even made an appearance on Hayley’s Petals for Armor album in 2020, providing vocals and piano on the closing track Crystal Clear. But despite claims that he’d recorded an album back in the ’70s, few were certain the album even existed until his old production partner Frank Morris rediscovered the record. “I don’t expect anything, and I’m too old to be famous,” Williams says. “But I just want to know someone liked what I did, and to be touched by whatever the hell they are listening to. I want people to see how it felt when things were real. You write stuff, and you want somebody to get something out of it. I just had to wait for a granddaughter and a band with her to really do anything with mine.”
Winona Fighter
My Apologies To The Chef
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “My Apologies To The Chef is the debut album from rising punk band Winona Fighter. “This has truly been a long time coming,” reflects frontwoman and multi-instrumentalist Coco Kinnon. “Every song was either written or co-written by us. It was just me (Coco) and the boys (Dan and Austin) in our home studio from pre-production to sending it off for mastering.” She continues: “I couldn’t think of a better introduction to the band. 14 hard-hitting tracks straight from a guest bedroom or garage. It’s raw. It’s got emotion. It’s got a little satire. Mostly, it’s uniquely us. It’s three punks obsessed with music, making tunes for people obsessed with music. It is a punk-rock record, period.” Kinnon’s introduction to the Boston punk rock scene at an early age was the catalyst influence for her current sound and stage presence. Moving to Nashville gave her a task to expose all music lovers to the power of thrashable tunes. After recruiting lead guitarist Dan Fuson, they set off to do justice to the scene Coco had left behind. Eventually the two of them added Austin Luther (bass/producer).”
The Wombats
Oh! The Ocean
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Since they emerged as leading lights of the late-’00s indie rock scene with 2007 debut A Guide to Love, Loss and Desperation, Liverpool’s The Wombats — Matthew “Murph” Murphy, Tord Øverland Knudsen and Dan Haggis — have maintained an incredible upward momentum. 2011’s electro-flecked second album The Modern Glitch made them Top 10 regulars; 2015’s third Glitterbug spawned the viral hit Greek Tragedy. By 2018’s Beautiful People Will Ruin Your Life, they’d stepped up to arenas, and 2022’s Fix Yourself, Not The World was their first U.K. No. 1 album. Now they launch a new era with sixth album Oh! The Ocean, a project that grooves with social anxiety, internal strife, compulsive behaviours and the dilemmas and tribulations of Los Angeles life, where Murph and his family live. From behind the band’s deceptively cuddly façade, Murph has always written openly about his anxiety, depression and addictions (he’s now “sober as hell”), but with this collection there’s a sense of progress towards confronting, accepting and coping with his issues. Alongside familiar sounds they explore new genres from glistening tech rock to sci-fi pop, futuristic fuzz rock to bluesy rock’n’roll, with touches of disco and hip-hop-inflections.”
Neil Young
Oceanside Countryside
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Oceanside Countryside is the latest of Neil Young’s great ‘lost’ albums to be released as part of his Analog Original Series. The album was recorded from May to December 1977, preceding the release of Comes A Time in 1978. The two albums share the same country/folk sound, and three songs (Goin’ Back, Human Highway and Field of Opportunity) appear on both albums. Recorded on tape, these are the original mixes done at the time of recording. As Young states, “This analog original album was recorded in 1977 and unreleased. These songs are the original mixes done at the time of the recordings in the order I planned for the album. I sang the vocals and played the instruments on Oceanside in Florida at Triad Studios and Malibu at Indigo studio. I sang the vocals and recorded with my great band of friends, Ben Keith, Joe Osborn, Karl T. Himmel and Rufus Thibodeaux at Crazy Mama’s in Nashville on Countryside… Listening to it now, I think I should have put it out back then.”
Zement
Passagen
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Following the success of their third album Rohstoff, which introduced psychedelic undertones into their mix, Passagen is set to take Zement’s exploration of sound even further. It delivers more disco, more punch, more glitter, more motorik, more lyrics and more jazz. The endless meditation on the architecture of mind and the movement of bodies continues.”
