Album Cycle For February 21st

Includes new release album list, curated playlists for Apple Music and Spotify and my thoughts on a couple albums

Happy Sunday! Here is the new album list for this week, my thoughts on a couple, and the curated playlists for Apple Music and Spotify. It’s kind of a light week, with most people buying the surprise album from A Day To Remember and pop star Tate McRae this week. There were some good releases, and I talk about new ones from Sunny War and Murder Capital below. On the playlist, you will find songs from the new solo album from Drive-By Truckers member Patterson Hood and singer-songwriter Basia Bulat.

Also included are Dutch power rock trio Adbdomen, which isn’t traditionally my thing, but I like this. Indie singer-songwriter types Anna Shoemaker are here, as is IDER. The Wombats are not really my thing either, but they really got me with their single off their new album called “Blood On The Hospital Floor.” Also, there are Youth Lagoon, Baths, and Saya Gray—all three I found intriguing, and we will see if further listens get me over the hump. Finally, there is a track from the jazz band The Young Mothers. They are all over the place. Jazz, free jazz, hip-hop—you name it. Very good stuff.

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THIS LINK IS THE APPLE MUSIC PLAYLIST

Below is the Spotify Playlist

The Murder Capital-Blindness-This is the third album from Irish post-punk band The Murder Capital. The thing that always draws me to this band is a personal thing. Vocalist, James McGovern, reminds me so much of Cathal Coughlan from Fatima Mansions and Microdisney. Coughlan passed away a couple of years back, and I was a massive fan and I find solace in this bands music as it feels like he lives on in my head. Anyway, other than my weirdness they are a very good post punk band that has been a little more aggressive and dry than a lot of the new breed of theses types of bands. Still the case here, but it has been around the third album for a lot of these bands that they start to expand, and that is also the case here. There are a lot more indie-rock sensibilities in the songs here, though it will take multiple listens to for it to sink in. This is a solid album and easily the bands best. They seem to keep getting hit with timing issues and getting overshadowed by other bands, so who knows if the masses will ever find them, but when this chapter in muscial history is written someday, they will certainly be mentioned and maybe be more popular then than now.

Sunny War-Armageddon In A Summer Dress-This is, I think, the fifth album from Sunny War, though the last couple are when she really came on people’s radar. I have had an advance on this for a while, so I have gotten a chance to really let this sink in. She is officially “folk-punk” on the one-sheet bios, but her music traditionally is more folk, and her ethos and lyrics are more punk. This album is political and feminist and very happy and poppy musically. I wouldn’t put it in either of those categories. It’s an extremely easy listen, and you will find yourself hooked right away with “One Way Train,” and I think “Rise” and “Cry Baby” could also stand out to you on first listen. When you dig in, you may have to spend a little more time with collaborations from Steve Ignorant of Crass and John Doe of the band X. The closing song on here, “Debbie Downer,” I feel is kind of silly, but damn is it catchy, and I actually feel what she is singing in the song about many people. This album is a must listen.

Abdomen – Yes, I Don’t Know

Anna Shoemaker – Someone Should Stop Her

Anxious – Bambi

Baths – Gut

Basia Bulat – Basia’s Palace

Bill Medley – Straight From the Heart

Bren Joy – Sunset Black

Califone – The Villagers Companion

Colin Self – respite ∞ levity for the nameless ghost in crisis

Dirty Honey – Mayhem and Revelry Live

Elis Mano Band – MORPH

Four Seconds Ago – 1000 Needles

Gaytheist – The Mustache Stays

IDER – Late to the World

Kameron Marlowe – Sad Songs For The Soul

Katy Pinke – Strange Behavior

Kelora – Sleepers

Killswitch Engage – This Consequence

Les Rallizes Dénudés – YaneUra Sept. ‘80

Luke Sital-Singh – Fool’s Spring

Mandrake Handshake – Earth-Sized Worlds

Masma Dream World – Please Come to Me

Max Frost – Shelby Ave

Morray – Long Story Short

The Murder Capital – Blindness

Nao – Jupiter

Nina Nesbitt – Mountain Music (The Summit)

ONE OK ROCK – DETOX

Patterson Hood– Exploding Trees & Airplane Screams

Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band – Honeysuckle

Rum Jungle – Recency Bias

Say Gray-Saya

SAINt JHN – Festival Season

Sam Fender – People Watching

Saya Gray – SAYA

Scour – Gold

Silverstein – Antibloom / Pink Moon

Sir Woman – If It All Works Out

Souled American – Rise Above it: A Souled American Anthology

The Stylistics – Falling in Love With My Girl

Sunny War – Armageddon in a Summer Dress

Tate McRae – So Close To What

Tim Hecker – Shards

The Wombats – Oh! The Ocean

Wrekmeister Harmonies – Flowers In The Spring

Wren-Black Rain Falls

Yawning Balch – Volume Three

The Young Mothers – Better If You Let It

Youth Lagoon – Rarely Do I Dream

Ziggy Alberts – New Love