The days are getting longer — and so is your playlist, assuming you enjoy Charley Crockett, Coheed & Cambria, Nels Cline and/or clipping. (along with some other artists that don’t start with C). Enjoy that extra hour of evening sunlight by listening to these releases:
Ainsoph
Affection & Vengeance
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Affection & Vengeance is deeply moving in its capacity to evoke raw emotion from profound regions thru its utterly immersive sound. Pulsing beats mimic throbbing hearts abreast gashing riffs and licks, thoroughly moving with its plethora of shades and colours, as urgent as it is bucolic, burning with life as it serenely contemplates the void. The group’s reverberations grasp a new apex, as the electric, hypnotizing wall of sound embraces the listener in a solitary pathway where variety is yet again a feature in the creations of Ainsoph. A dichotomy is not only breathing in the album’s title, but it is also felt in how the Dutch entity thrives through catchy, melancholic post-punk pastures — where the wonderous voice of I.V. sparkles and moves — or blast-beating Black Metal inspired outbreaks, incurring in experimental traits that enrich this audial palette, showcasing Ainsoph reaching new heights in intensity and climax. Affection & Vengeance stands as a thorough experience into the nadirs of the mind, body and soul, a sorrowful, a pleasurable and certainly an unforgettable voyage over and beyond ethereal planes of ecstasy.”
Bambara
Birthmarks
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Birthmarks emerges directly from Bambara’s favored aesthetics and themes, but captures them with a new sense of sonic adventurousness and thematic subtlety, resulting in a collection of songs that are somehow both the band’s most apocalyptic and most poignant. “Getting us to think of the same moments in a song with completely different lighting, or from different camera angles,” drummer Blaze Bateh said. “We talked a lot about music that puts you in a cinematic space, like Sade and Portishead, and we focused more on the beats than we would in the past. We wanted it to move in a different way; we wanted certain moments to breathe.”
Jason Boland & The Stragglers
The Last Kings Of Babylon
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “This album is a mirror,” says Jason Boland. “It’s a retrospective, a reflection of everywhere we’ve been and everything we’ve learned over the last 25 years on the road.” The Last Kings Of Babylon — Boland’s 11th studio album with his longtime band The Stragglers — is no nostalgia trip, though. Recorded with legendary producer Lloyd Maines, the collection finds Boland and the band continuing to evolve, pushing sonic boundaries and challenging genre conventions even as they embrace history and tradition. The songwriting is bold and muscular here, filtering classic country through a kaleidoscopic lens of rock, punk, bluegrass, and folk, and the performances are raw and exhilarating to match, captured live on the studio floor in just two whirlwind days of basic tracking. The result is a timeless offering from a group of master craftsmen at the top of their game, a joyful, honest snapshot of a working band 25 years into their unlikely — and unstoppable — career. “These songs are about the journey,” Boland reflects. “We were searching for something when we started this band, and we’re still out there searching for it now.”
Nels Cline
Consentrik Quartet
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “To be sure, the guitarist and composer Nels Cline has range. Think of how he elevates the songs of Jeff Tweedy as a member of Wilco, or the diverse musical terrain he’s traversed on his albums for Blue Note Records over the past decade — from the gorgeous, sweeping mood music of Lovers to the wide-open sonic audacity of Share the Wealth, the latter featuring his longtime group The Nels Cline Singers. Now comes Consentrik Quartet, the eponymous debut showcasing a newer band comprising tenor and soprano saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock, bassist Chris Lightcap and drummer Tom Rainey. By turns swinging, grooving, bracing, mesmeric and quietly stunning, Consentrik Quartet spotlights the ensemble’s profound chemistry as well as Cline’s versatility as both a player and a writer in a focused context where his gifts can be appreciated with absolute clarity.”
clipping.
Dead Channel Sky
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “The twin sunsof hip-hop and cyberpunk both rose in the 1970s and warmed the wider world during the 1980s and 1990s. What if someone explicitly merged them into one set and sound? After all, both movements are the result of hacking the haunted leftovers of a war-torn culture that’s long since moved on. On Dead Channel Sky, clipping. texture-map the twin histories of hip-hop and cyberpunk onto an alternate present where Rammellzee and Bambaataa are the superheroes of old; where Cybotron and Mantronix are the reigning legends; where Egyptian Lover and Freestyle are debated endlessly, and Ultramag and Public Enemy are the undeniable forefathers; where the lost movements of 1980s and the 1990s are still happening: Rave, trip-hop, hip-house, acid house, drum & bass, big beat — the detritus of a different timeline, the survivors of armed audio warfare. That war at 33 1/3, its atrocities imprinted upon yet another generation, what someone once called, ‘the presence of the significance of things’ without a hint of ambiguity.”
Coheed & Cambria
Vaxis Act III: The Father Of Make Believe
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “The Father of Make Believe is Coheed & Cambria’s 10th studio album and continues the narrative of The Amory Wars / Vaxis universe, following their 2022 album Vaxis Act II: A Window of the Waking Mind, which garnered critical success and the band’s first Top 10 radio single of their career with Shoulders. The Father of Make Believe finds Coheed & Cambria establishing a desire to move forward while honouring a remarkable history. Another way of looking it: As a series of questions, emotions, and thoughts at war with each other — “a war within myself,” as bandleader, vocalist and lead guitarist Claudio Sanchez puts it. The Father of Make Believe fits into the band’s sonic oeuvre with wailing guitars, drums that crack like fireworks, and Sanchez’s aching, powerful voice centring us through moments both placid and pinwheeling. Where the set forges new ground is in how Sanchez embraces the role of main character. He’s often used epic songcraft to mask the stories he wanted to tell: reflections on an addicted father, memories of his beloved grandfather, fears about raising a child in a cruel world, anxieties around losing the love of his life. This time around, he’s writing more directly about his life and, especially, his career. Sanchez is The Father of Make Believe, gazing down upon this world he’s wrought.”
Courting
Lust for Life, Or: How To Thread The Needle And Come Out The Other Side To Tell The Story
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Lust for Life, Or: How To Thread The Needle And Come Out The Other Side To Tell The Story, is centred around duality. The intention is to bring together everything Courting have created thus far into a succinct, direct, record. Each song on the album is twinned with another, existing within the same type of world. Take, for example, the opening and closing bookends of the record, both featuring the same string melody but with the first serving as an orchestral introduction, and the second as a speeding dance punk track. Tracks 2 and tracks 8 interpolate the same drum and string samples but shift them into completely different beasts. The first sitting somewhere between 2010’s dubstep and a noise band covering a small faces track, and the latter being a multi part, auto-tune crooning ballad with a striking saxophone solo. The aim is clear as Courting balance the indie and pop songwriting of their previous records with their most experimental moments, each detail more refined than the last time.”
Charley Crockett
Lonesome Drifter
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Lonesome Drifter is the new album from Grammy-nominated artist Charley Crockett. Crockett co-produced the album alongside Grammy-winning musician and producer Shooter Jennings. Over the course of just 10 days, they cut 12 tracks live at the legendary Sunset Sound in Los Angeles. Crockett’s Island Records debut is a culmination of all that has come before, with the same unapologetic spirit, die-hard work ethic, and no-nonsense honesty that has driven his artistry across his 14 previous studio albums. In the end, Lonesome Drifter takes stock of Charley’s road in the rearview as it paves a path into the future.”
Dirty Talons
Deep Dive
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Deep Dive is Dirty Talons’ sword in the stone, and together they have liberated that blade with sparks flying all around! The 12 tracks on Deep Dive showcase the evolution of the band and its sound, both in terms of songwriting and musical capability. Describing the overall sound of Dirty Talons may be hard, but the six-piece considers that a very good problem to have, as Deep Dive carries hints of old-school acts like Boston, Judas Priest or Pat Benatar, while also delivering modern elements reminiscent of bands like Kvelertak, Sheer Mag or White Reaper.”
