Best New Releases, April 4: Black Country, New Road, Scowl, and more
On paper, today’s new releases didn’t look like quite the overwhelming deluge as it turned out to be, but well, look at them! Today, we’ve got a baker’s dozen of goodies to recommend, from the return of an indie rock powerhouse to the debut EP from a noisemaker to watch, a hardcore band embracing their pop instincts to the latest installment of the always excellent Jazz Is Dead series. Here are the week’s best new releases.
Note: When you buy something through our affiliate links, Treble receives a commission. All albums we cover are chosen by our editors and contributors.
Black Country, New Road – Forever Howlong
In a certain sense, this has no right being released under the BCNR name at all. This is not for lack of quality; these songs are little jewels, multi-faceted and finely detailed. The issue, if you want to call it that, is one of great departure. Despite only really losing the one guy, BCNR have reinvented themselves, being caught in a web between baroque pop and the chamber folk, reading at times like Sparks meeting Cindy Lee in an elevator or the particular prog bent of artists like Joanna Newsom or Crosby, Stills and Nash at their more structurally inventive. Are there traces of Cardiacs in here? Well, it’s British art rock, so yes; that’s as assured as The Fall. Discovering a second kind of band buried inside the previous is always such a fascinating reveal. They have legs yet still. More on this soon. – Langdon Hickman
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Turntable Lab (vinyl)
Scowl – Are We All Angels
The latest album from the California hardcore troupe finds them growing as songwriters. It’s more passive-aggressive than punching you in the face, as hardcore is more of a punctuated accent to what they are doing now rather than a definition of their sound. Their approach on Are We All Angels owes more to ’90s-era alt-rock bands like Veruca Salt, thanks to the slacker croon of Kat Moss, who only colors the songs with her angry snarl in sparse dynamic bursts. Is it more accessible? Sure, though the hooky nature of the melodies captured here ensures this album will stick with you long after the hardcore revival has left town. – Wil Lewellyn
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Rough Trade (vinyl)
Momma – Welcome to My Blue Sky
Brooklyn indie rock duo (now expanded to a quartet) Momma are experts at crafting hook-driven indie rock, and their latest, Welcome to My Blue Sky, is their strongest set of songs yet, a seamless blend of dream pop shimmer, dense shoegaze effects and big, alt-rock crunch. And I can’t stress this enough: These songs are so damn catchy. Those with a particular yen for ’90s grunge guitars and power pop melodies will fall for this without any struggle whatsoever. Just check the early singles such as the drum-machine-loop dreams of “Bottle Blonde” or the soaring chorus of “Ohio All the Time.” It’ll be spinning all summer, guaranteed. More on this one soon. – Jeff Terich
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Turntable Lab (vinyl)
The Null Club – The Null Club EP
This is the debut EP from The Null Club, and damn, what a debut it is. The solo project of Gilla Band’s Alan Duggan Borges, The Null Club leans hard into fluid applications of industrial noise, deep grooves within punishing metallic structures—not unlike his full-time band if they were more abstract and pulsing with electronic menace. The most immediate comparison that comes to mind is Fuck Buttons, though Mandy, Indiana—whose Valentine Caulfield makes an appearance here—is likewise in the ballpark. For that matter, a few other notable guests appear here, including ELUCID of Armand Hammer and The Horrors’ Faris Badwan. But while they add splashes of color and charisma to the EP, it’s all about the musculo-skeletal noise that Borges sculpts, and what a sound it is to behold. – Jeff Terich
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp
Anika – Abyss
As the future of the U.S. appears bleaker than ever, let’s not forget that all isn’t right in the rest of the world, either. On her third studio full-length, British chanteuse Anika laments the fixation on social media and overstimulation that appeared trendy—and friendly—at first but now seems like an inescapable albatross. Melding music that could be mistaken for Yeah Yeah Yeahs, or a contemporary band covering Jefferson Airplane really well, she dumps her grief into Abyss, framed by infectious, minimalistic instrumentation by a backing band of spare, sometimes echoey guitar; florid, accentuated bass; and light, crashing drums. “Who am I to judge?” Anika wonders on the title track. She is, clearly—and we’re listening. – Kurt Orzeck
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Rough Trade (vinyl)
Sleigh Bells – Bunky Becky Birthday Boy
Witness Sleigh Bells play in concert, and you’ll know what you’re in for: Marshall-stack schlock-rock made by a duo whose music library must have roughly the same amount of punk and hip-hop vinyl. In other words, Brooklyn. The “metal” tag continues to somehow get attached to this dexterous duo, but they make it clear on their sixth album that they’d rather throw on indie-rock (don’t miss singer Alexis Krauss’ amusing “Sonic Youth in the afternoon” quip in “Roxette Ric”). For at least the second time, if not the third, Sleigh Bells make it clear that they’ll always be able to out-party Andrew W.K. – Kurt Orzeck
Listen/Buy: Spotify | Rough Trade (vinyl)
Mekons – Horror
The number of not only great but quite foundational and old post-punk bands I’ve discovered via our editor Jeff now exceeds two hands worth of counting digits. Mekons, the newest group added to my awareness, is coming up on their fiftieth year of action; Horror feels not even half that age. The range here has the same starry-eyed naive grandeur as Sandinista!, being rangey stylistically (dub, reggae, country, slowcore, new wave, jangle pop, and more meet together here) less by virtuosic gift and more by earnest interest, which it turns out counts just as much if not more. Their rage here is pointed at all the right places, as is all of their fondness. Do you dig the latter era Wire records? (You should. See our reviews.) This one will hit the spot. – Langdon Hickman
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Rough Trade (vinyl)
Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs – Death Hilarious
The difference between stoner rock and stoner metal isn’t always to be found in the sound as in the delivery: Consider the seriousness of High on Fire versus the goofiness of Fu Manchu, for example. On their fifth studio album, Britain’s Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs (or: Pigs x7) remind us that they belong in the campier, latter camp. Album highlights include the hook-fest known as “Stitches”; the heady, seven-minute epic “The Wyrm”; and “Glib Tongued,” a seemingly ill-fitting mash-up of El-P and slow, fuzzy guitars that is a surprising, glorious success. Take note, fans of sarcastic, heavy noise-rock: Pigs x7 got yer back. – Kurt Orzeck
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp
Hyldon & Adrian Younge – Hyldon JID 023
Whereas Jazz Is Dead 022 revolved around Afrobeat guitarist/bandleader Ebo Taylor of Ghana, this time around, reverential Kendrick Lamar/ Ghostface Killah producer Adrian Younge gives another living legend his due: Hyldon of Brazil. Younge has always had a penchant for psychedelic soul from the ‘60s and ‘70s, but in collaborating with Hyldon, he coats their songs with a hip-hop sheen that brings the 73-year-old singer/guitarist right up to the modern-day fore. The results are glorious. – Kurt Orzeck
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Rough Trade (vinyl)
Sean Haefeli – Flying Broken Form
As a culture, we are in the process of a wake-up, and there are two ways to view it. I opt for the Japanese take, where the word for “crisis,” kiki (危機), is composed of two characters: “危” (wēi, meaning danger) and “機” (jī, meaning opportunity), thus reflecting the idea that a crisis can also be a turning point or chance. That point is being reached in the way world music is getting a glow-up with its new presentations, and it’s been a given that hip-hop and jazz keep giving and taking from one another since the ’90s. Sean Haefeli is carrying that conversation forward with deep, groovy enunciations and constructing prismatic chords through the winning Flying Broken Form that takes the said “new breed” jazz soul hip-hop artists into places that reach for new, and I’ll take it. – John-Paul Shiver
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp
Panchiko – Gingko
Panchiko’s debut full-length Failed at Math(s) was half-composed of reworked demos from two decades prior, meaning that Gingko is the first time they’ve written and recorded an entire album in a single period. It only took them about 27 years. While the passage of time has neutered some of D>E>A>T>H>M>E>T>A>L’s (the famed demo that brought them back to life in 2020) idiosyncracies, Panchiko prove on Gingko that their appeal is evergreen. The breezy choruses and glitchy noises remain and are further fleshed out, as is their effervescent dream pop. Plus, you know you’re doing right as an indie rock band if you get a billy woods feature on your album. More to come on this one. – Colin Dempsey
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Rough Trade (vinyl)
Barker – Stochastic Drift
With a cover like this, I had prepped myself for some proper Rune Grammofon style jazz, the label that’s home to groups such as Krokofant and Elephant9 whom we love here. So on pressing play and finding a combination of techno and deep house, creating layered grooves too active tense to be ambient and too melodically responsive to be kosmische, I found an exciting new kind of heaven. There is no doubt in my mind that this stuff would do great on a dancefloor or in a boiler room set, but all I can attest to is its grandeur and force as headphones music. This is the proper kind of electronic record, the sort that whisks you away entirely, visions of white sand and clear water and the deepest blue you’ve ever seen. Who doesn’t long to be enveloped? – Langdon Hickman
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Rough Trade (vinyl)
The Hemphill Stringtet: The Hemphill Stringtet Plays the Music of Julius Hemphill
The on-the-rise, artist-run ‘out’-jazz Out Of Your Head label continues its winning streak with a celebration of one of the avant-garde’s visionary composers. The late great Julius Hemphill exemplified prolific with his all-encompassing interdisciplinary prowess, writing for jazz, strings and opera groups while influencing and playing with the likes of Tim Berne, Wilco’s Nels Cline and Bill Frisell. The Hemphill Stringtet, featuring a world-class quartet made up of violinists Curtis Stewart and Sam Bardfeld, violist Stephanie Griffin and cellist Tomeka Reid, pays homage to the enduring legacy of Hemphill with truly electrifying and thoughtful adaptations of pieces he wrote for the legendary World Saxophone Quartet that seemingly float on air. The Hemphill Stringtet gives the chamber music treatment to Hemphill’s blues-leaning music with such expressive depth, lyrical beauty and adventurous fervor that it will surely stop you in your tracks in amazement. – Brad Cohan
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp
