Essential Tracks This Week: MJ Lenderman, Dummy, and more
This week’s Essential Tracks is slightly more abbreviated than usual as we get caught up from a long week, though there’s a good chance we’d have room for another track here if Blood Incantation released a single along with their album announcement. Nonetheless, this week’s Essential Tracks includes four must-hear songs from singer/songwriters, shoegazers and noisemakers. Hear them all below.
MJ Lenderman – “She’s Leaving You”
MJ Lenderman’s had a busy year and change as a sideman, both as a member of Wednesday and providing guitar and backing vocals on Waxahatchee’s excellent new album. With the upcoming Manning Fireworks, he’s back in the spotlight as a singer/songwriter in his own right, and it’s a reminder of the kind of rustic, ragged yet heroic alt-country he delivers on his own. Despite the pessimism inherent in the title, “She’s Leaving You” carries a sense of hope in its acknowledgement that life goes on: “It falls apart/We all got work to do.” Add some soaring, J Mascis-like guitar theatrics to go with its infectious melody, and you have the makings of an incredible rock anthem.
From Manning Fireworks, out September 6 via Anti-
Dummy – “Nullspace”
Three years after the release of their excellent debut album Mandatory Enjoyment, the group introduced new album Free Energy with a song that ramps up the experimental elements of their pop shoegaze sound. “Nullspace” is a swirl of hazy guitar up against bubbling, dub-techno effects and baggy/Madchester drum loops, which adds up to something that feels simultaneously of the moment and reminiscent of various other inspired sounds of the early ’90s, colliding in blissful harmony.
From Free Energy, out September 6 via Trouble in Mind
Uniform – “This Is Not a Prayer”
Over time, Uniform have added more colors to their palette of abrasion and agony—deeper shades of blood and rust, more vivid tints of gray and grime. “This Is Not A Prayer,” the first single from their first new album in four years, adds a few more shades yet, with squealing noise rock guitar riffs shrieking through their industrial pummel. The song finds them further enhancing their crushing, industrial metal roar via eerie and unsettling melodic flourishes, but it’s still recognizably Uniform, right down to Michael Berdan’s throat-shredding screams. And that’s a wonderfully bleak thing to hear.
From American Standard, out August 23 via Sacred Bones
Party Dozen – “The Big Man Upstairs”
Two years ago, Australian noise rock duo Party Dozen delivered one of 2022’s most thrilling surprises in the form of The Real Work, offering up blistering and cacophonous raveups through an unlikely mixture of drums and saxophone. With the first single from their upcoming album Crime In Australia, the dense and melodic “The Big Man Upstairs,” the duo transition into more melodic and understated territory. The group leans away from the sharp blasts of distortion and fury in favor of a rock anthem with mesmerizing intricacies and no shortage of heroic saxophone to drive it all home.
From Crime In Australia, out September 6 via Temporary Residence
