New Music Friday sloshes in with some interesting listens, including what’s supposed to be the last-ever Megadeth Record, this week’s SNL musical guest, and the return of the Arctic Monkeys.
Singles
1. Arctic Monkeys, Opening Night (War Child Records)
Wait! Are the Arctic Monkeys ready to follow up their The Car album? I mean, it’s coming up on four years. No? What is this then? The lead single of a War Child benefit album called HELP(2)? That also features Fontaines DC, Damon Albarn, Depeche Mode, Foals, Wet Leg, Pulp, The Last Dinner Party, Beabadoobee, Olivia Rodrigo, Big Thief, Beth Gibbons, King Krule, Beck, and more? Oh. When’s it out? March 6. Got it.
2. Geese, Cobra (Partisan)
Geese is this year’s Indie Band That Everyone is Freaking Out Over. Ever since the release of their third album, Getting Killed, they’ve been praised for “transcending today’s algorithm culture,” which is a fancy way of saying “We don’t know how to categorize this band.” Which, by the way, is very, very true. Catch them as the musical guest on SNL this weekend. This has been out for a while, but it’s being reserviced for those who missed it the first time around.
3. The New Pornographers, Votive (Merge)
Nice to see one of Canada’s few indie supergroups back. The first single from The Former Site Of (due on March 27) is a dreamy sort of thing built around A.C. Newman playing a mandolin and synth, which builds into something pretty cool. This record uses sounds Newman discovered after building his home studio. With no deadlines or budgets to worry about, he was free to experiment. Damn, the chorus is hooky.
4. Ruby Waters, Blinders (Wet Records)
Ruby got everyone’s attention with a debut album a while back (multiple alt-rock radio hits, two JUNO nominations, a world tour, plenty of summer festivals, etc.) and is now ready with a sophomore album. There’s no date yet, but when a lead single arrives, an album can’t be too far behind. If the dentist makes you squeamish, you might want to avert your eyes.
5. Wolf Parade, I’ll Believe in Anything (Sub Pop)
Wolf Parade is one of a several Canadian bands to get a streaming boost thanks to a sync appearance in Heated Rivalry, the Canadian gay hockey drama. The song is hardly new; it arrive 21 years ago. But now that the show is a worldwide hit, Wolf Parade is happy to ride the bench in support, garnering 30 million fresh Spotify streams along the way. It’s also been used in more than 27,000 TikTok posts. No wonder it’s been re-released.
Albums
1. The Damned, Not Like Everybody Else (earMusic)
When punk first broke in the UK in the mid-70s, there were five key bands: Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Jam, The Buzzcocks, and The Damned. The latter two are still together and releasing albums. The Buzzcocks will have something later this year in an album entitled Attitude Adjustment while The Damned is here now with an all-covers tribute to their late guitarist, Brian James, who died last March. The first single was first recorded by R. Dean Taylor back in 1973.
2. Dead Dads Club, Dead Dads Club (Fiction)
This is a new band fronted by Chilli Jesson of the London band, Palma Violets. Making the album helped Chilli process the death of his father. The whole thing was produced by Fontaines DC guitarist Carlos O’Connell.
3. Megadeth, Megadeth (Tradecraft / BLKIIBLK / Frontiers Music s.r.l.)
Dave Mustaine has been telling everyone who will listen that after 17 records over 42 years, this is definitely the final Megadeth album. After one more tour, that’ll be it. It’s understandable, too, given that Dave was diagnosed with cancer in 2019 (we’ll hear more in his upcoming memoir, In My Darkest Hour). Dave, however, is going out very, very loudly.
4. Poppy, Empty Hands (Sumerian)
I wasn’t originally able to get a handle on Poppy, the American singer (Moriah Rose Pereira), who started with performance art posts on YouTube that portrayed her as some kind of internet-satirizing android. Since then, though, she’s followed a somewhat more conventional path. The new album, her seventh studio work, takes her back to something 0n the more surreal side in places. It also crunchy in an Evanescence way, too, which is pretty cool.
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