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New Music Fridays: Kacey Musgraves, Four Tet, Tierra Whack and more
This is a thread to discuss 2024 releases that have recently arrived on our doorstep, or been announced for the future. Feel free to share albums, singles, EPs or reissues that have caught your eye and interest, or share your thoughts about any new music that you've had the chance to listen to this week.
Discussion Points
Is there anything you've been looking forward to listening to?
Any releases that have surprised you?
Have you listened to any new music recently? What are your thoughts?
What have you enjoyed from these artists in the past? How does their latest work compare?
Links:
Pitchfork - Out This Week
AllMusic - All New Releases
Stereogum - New Music
A few releases to check out this week. Here's what caught my eye ~
Kacey Musgraves has released her sixth studio album 'Deeper Well'. Responses seem a little mixed-to-positive so far. I heard it earlier today - while it's smoothed away the akwardness of 'Star-Crossed', it's smooth now to the point of being almost uninteresting. But it's pleasant. There's no surprises, so if you liked the singles, it very consistently carries that sound. Kacey was so sparky, I'm not sure where that Kacey has gone since 2020. Hope someone here gets more mileage.
Four Tet has released his twelth studio album 'Three'. This one's nice. There's definitely some 'Rounds' in it, some ambient moments, some very 90s inspired moments. Check it out.
A full length release from Tierra Whack! 'World Wide Whack'. Tierra made a splash in 2018 with the release of 'Whack World' - a 15 minute where each song is 1 minute. It's weird, twee poppy hip hop that made for a really fun listen that year. She seemed to struggle to ride that wave of success. Six(!) years later, there's some fun hooks here, but Tierra seems to have a hard time fleshing them out
A couple days ago Adrianne Lenker from Big Thief released a fundraiser EP of covers for the Palestine Children's Relief Fund.
Chuck Strangers released his second LP 'A Forsaken Lover's Plea'. Really enjoying this one, some ice-old, non-complicated hip hop from the east coat.
A little of attention surrounding this new release from Bladee and Yung Lean, 'Psykos'. These two helped spearhead the underground Cloud Rap scene, but this is a take on a Post-Punk sound - feels inspired by Joy Division or The Cure.
Agree with you about the Kacey Musgraves album. Pleasant background music, not something to listen to for the sake of listening to it.
I've listened to Deeper Well three times through, maybe searching for something to love about it, and found myself humming a few songs on repeat. In particular Lonely Millionaire and Moving Out have stuck with me, and I love the concept and subject matter of Sway.
The standout to me, however, is Anime Eyes. It captures what I fell in love with from her earlier music like Dimestore Cowgirl and Family is Family: the fun, self-deprecating humour that made her stand out from other country artists. Also it's such a bold thing, I feel, to put a song like that on the album knowing how Out of genre it is. I always think of country as being old, and Anime Eyes introduces a level of anachronism I want expecting.
I've listened to the album a few more times since first reading your comment, and it's growing on me a bit. Agree on Anime Eyes, by far the best song on the album in both melody & lyrics. Love the "Ridiculous hazy, crazy, rainbow, explosions of ecstasy" verse so much.
I have been really enjoying the new album from Necrophobic, In the Twilight Grey. They wield a very headbangable brand of melodic black/death metal. Tons of great riffs and soaring leads throughout.
Probably my favorite of the "big" black metal bands. They just consistently have great output.
Quieter week and that's okay!
Non-metal
Spectres - Presence
Goth/post-punk from Vancouver, BC. Classic low voice and the sound you'd expect from the genre mostly, but it has a bit of a guitar-forward indie rock flair to it. Very pleasing, lush sounds.
Metal (primarily clean-ish / non-scream vocals)
Savage Oath - Divine Battle
Epic heavy metal from the US with some power metal feel- but without the typical over-the-top power metal cheese. Stays pretty firmly on the heavy metal side of things when it comes to the overall sound, but plenty of fast riffs and leads.
Metal (primarily harsh vocals)
Prisoner - Putrid | Obsolete
Richmond, VA d-beat/crustpunk but with some industrial edge. Great mix of influences.
Sacrificial Vein - Black Terror Genesis
Dissonant black metal with death/doom elements. Vocalist from Nothingness. Chants, low spoken word parts, swirling blast beats that sometimes makes this remind me of Esoctrilihum.
Necrophobic - In The Twilight Grey
The best "big budget" black metal band. They keep pushing out great releases. Mark of the Necrogram was a top album for me and this continues their quality work.
Brat - Social Grace
New Orleans hardcore with some grind/powerviolence feel and plenty of other influences (death, thrash, etc). Band describes themselves as bimboviolence. Sick merch and overall vibe. Aesthetically strikes a great balance between amusing/light-hearted and aggressive.
Stress Angel - Punished by Nemesis
Stompy death/thrash with a nice vocal growl that really has its own character in a saturated genre. Vocal reverb, some high speed-metal yells, and some really interesting guitar parts that clearly pull from other genres. Feels more death metal at times, feels a bit doomy at certain slow sections, stays fun the whole time.
Vltimas - Epic
Sigh. This is the release I'm still putting on this list that I'm least excited about. I loved the debut album from Vltimas, despite David Vincent's weirdness and wardrobe choices. But that weirdness has seeped really deep into this record. The debut release had solid, biting, believably aggressive vocals. On Epic, Vincent is now taking those original vocals and pushing a "singing" almost heavy-metal-vocal tone into them, but with really weird inflections and melody choices and I'm not sure it works. On one hand, it is very unique and I can respect really going left field, I just wish that it clicked better for me. To me, it just doesn't land and makes me miss the vocals of the debut. Not sure if this will grow on me or not, yet.
That Sacrificial Vein album absolutely slaps. A lot of the guitar riffs remind me of Noise Trail Immersion's approach to harmony. Need to listen to it a bit more, but it's a definite contender for this year's top 10 list.
Don't know if you checked out Wasted Death's debut, also out this week, but it's pretty good - kind of in the thrash/grindcore spectrum, but also with the occasionally slow, sludgy passage.
Hadn't heard of Wasted Death, I'll check them out, thanks!
BabyMetal did a collaboration with a Thai band, Bodyslam, and a Thai rapper, F.Hero, this past week, which is interesting to hear the difference between Japanese and Thai. Leave it All Behind.
Even though they released it last week, Dark Tranquility (Melodeath) had released a new single and I know there are some fellow fans floating around on Tildes. The Last Imagination.
Imminence (metalcore band with the lead singer that plays the violin) had also released a new song yesterday, The Black.
Think I discovered Four Tet from Skrillex's latest album which was great. Listened to some of this album and I really like it, thanks for sharing