Best New Releases, March 7: Jason Isbell, Bob Mould, and more
It’s Friday, the best day of the week, because it means there’s a big batch of new music to dig into. Our picks for the best new albums out today include the latest from a couple of our favorite singer/songwriters, plus our space-age pop Album of the Week, an electronic collab, some heavy stuff and more. Queue up the week’s Best New Releases.
Blurbs written by Brad Cohan (BC), Colin Dempsey (CD), Langdon Hickman (LH), Jeff Terich (JT), and Wil Lewellyn (WL).
Note: When you buy something through our affiliate links, Treble receives a commission. All albums we cover are chosen by our editors and contributors.
Jason Isbell – Foxes in the Snow
If you doubted Isbell’s songwriting acumen at this point, you might have brain problems. For Foxes in the Snow, he drops his band and delivers a set of songs pairing just him and his acoustic guitar. To typify this record just as country would be to miss the much wider net of American folk song traditions he weaves through this one. The title track especially feels like it’s been around forever, one of those songs that has a first set of lyrics penned in the 1800s set to a melody even older. His eye scans wider these days too. A storyteller’s impulse, perfect for this world. (More on this one coming soon.) – LH
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Turntable Lab (vinyl)
Bob Mould – Here We Go Crazy
Is it strange to hear Bob Mould with such clear and rounded production? Sure, but his songcraft, like Paul Westerberg and others of his mighty cohort, remains bulletproof. He’s past the age of constant innovation and has long been in the stretch of immaculate songs, rock tunes with pop bones and little melodic and timbral touches from all over. Now in his 60s, it’s a pleasure to experience what feels like sitting at the feet of a master at rest. (We’ll have more to say on this album soon.) – LH
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Rough Trade (vinyl)
Monde UFO – Flamingo Tower
Los Angeles psych pop outfit Monde UFO have returned from their cosmic orbit with Flamingo Tower, a curious and fun album of genre blending musical collage, delivered in the form of some of their most infectious pop songs. It’s our Album of the Week. In our review, we said, “It’s no slight or dismissal to describe Monde UFO as a product of their influences—those influences never show up in predictable or expected ways, the band instead opting for an accessibly surrealist haze over straightforward homage.”
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Rough Trade (vinyl)
The Tubs – Cotton Crown
London group The Tubs released one of 2023’s most underrated albums, Dead Meat, which saw the group—featuring former members of Joanna Gruesome—pairing soaring pop melodies with an immaculate college rock jangle. Their follow-up to that album, Cotton Crown, is a more deeply personal affair, featuring songs written about grieving the death of his mother. And while the subject matter’s a bit heavier, their pop songwriting has only grown stronger, as on the harsher punk strum-along “Chain Reaction” or the infectious riffs of “Freak Mode,” which we dubbed an Essential Track. Though it’s an album defined by real pain, it’s nonetheless good for the soul. (We’ll have more on this one soon.) – JT
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Rough Trade (vinyl)
Lust for Youth/Croatian Amor – All Worlds
There’s something richly immersive about this set of electronic tracks. There’s shockingly little pretension here, as much as I’m a sucker for that kind of thing. Instead, we get threads of techno, house, little grace notes of new age and vaporwave, and all delivered without a shred of irony. Music like this, as all great rhythm and texture driven music, is largely about papering over the psyche scrap by scrap. It feels like warmth and wind, a Grecian coastline in spring. That these two groups pay off a collaboration from over a decade ago with something like this is a rare treat, a gleaming window to another place. – LH
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Rough Trade (vinyl)
Kedr Livanskiy – Myrtus Myth
Yana Kedrina, describes her fourth solo album under the Kedr Livanskiy moniker as “a reflection on painful topics through the prism of the mythical, dreamlike and otherworldly.”
In practice, Myrtus Myth is haunted by the ghosts of ’80s and ’90s electronic music. Soap opera vocal performances contrast skeletal and kitschy production, and the pairing beckons directly to the heart. Those more accustomed to Kedrina’s dance-ready tracks will be treated to a more insular release, even the production recalls the shabby nature of Björk’s Debut. Yet it does so with less wide-eyed wonder for the clubs. On the note of touchpoints, the press release also names Phil Collins, Kate Bush, and vaporwave, but that sells Myrtus Myth as bolder than it is. Those traces are there, but Myrtus Myth is, more than anything else, delicate. – CD
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Rough Trade (vinyl)
Staticlone – Better Living Through Static Vision
Featuring members of Blacklisted, Staticlone charge into their songs like a crust-punk version of Motörhead. The gruff vocals of George Hirsch highlight this comparison, along with the overdriven rumble of the bass that provides these songs with their backbone. Songs like “This Light Burns Like Poison” prove they can write songs with hooks without compromising the momentum or intensity. The raw organic production adds to the album’s charm as feedback squeals over samples often buried in the chaos. Not many bands are bringing the crust like Disfear and Nausea, so fans of the genre have a great deal to celebrate with this album. – WL
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp | Rough Trade (vinyl)
Kinski – Stumbledown Terrace
For close to a quarter-century, Seattle’s Kinski has laid claim to the throne as kings of the face-melting riff. Their high-octane, spaced-out psych-rock goodness has blown past heavy and heady levels, so much so that legendary labels such as Sub Pop and Kill Rock Stars released the bulk of their records. Now finding a home on the Comedy Plus One imprint, Stumbledown Terrace finds Kinski putting the power in power trio to the absolute max. The seven stadium-sized stoner rippers that make up their first album in seven years further raises the sonic bar that few come even close to approaching. Stumbledown Terrace demonstrates once again Kinski’s bottomless pit of massive riffage. – BC
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp
mssv – On and On
mssv (short for Main Steam Stop Valve) may feature Minutemen and Stooges bass godhead Mike Watt but this much is clear: this band is the left-field vision of guitar shredder, singer and ace tunesmith Mike Baggetta. He calls their idiosyncratic and infectious rollick “post-genre” and takes the reins in writing all the music and penning the rhymes and spiel. On On And On, mssv’s third album, shows Baggetta, backed by the next-level Contemplating The Engine Room rhythm section of Watt and drummer Stephen Hodges, in ragin’ full-on gear in the tradition of the scratchy funk damage of the Minutemen and fIREHOSE. On freaked-out tunes like “Super Dumb” and “Tiny Pipes,” mssv dials up its econo jazzy punk racket in the vein of the classic Double Nickels On The Dime. Don’t sleep on this gem. – BC
Listen/Buy: Bandcamp
