Alternative Rock
King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard Drop New Album Omnium Gatherum: Stream
King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard have released their new album Omnium Gatherum. Stream it below via Bandcamp. Led by the singles “The Dripping Tap,” “Magenta Mountain,” and “Kepler-22b,” not only is the studio set the Australian psych rockers’ landmark 20th album, it’s the first double LP in their more than decade-long career. The project also happens to mark another milestone: the first time the bandmates recorded together since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. (The pandemic-era releases that preceded it, including last month’s Made in Timeland and 2021’s Butterfly 3000, were recorded remotely with the musicians isolated from each other.) Advertisement Related Video In our review, Jordan Blum called Omnium Gatherum “staggeringly diverse and striving,” writing, “At the risk of soundin...
Spiritualized Release New Album Everything Was Beautiful: Stream
Spiritualized are back with new music for your next trip (if you’re into that sort of thing). The iconic space rock band’s ninth studio album, Everything Was Beautiful, is out now via Fat Possum Records. Listen below via Bandcamp. Written during the pandemic, Everything Was Beautiful sees Spiritualized frontman J Spaceman play 16 different instruments — in addition to a huge laundry list of guest contributors that includes string and brass sections and choirs. Spaceman and company recorded the album at 11 different studios as well as in his home. Ahead of the album’s release, Spiritualized shared a string of singles, including “Always Together with You,” “The Mainline Song,” and “Crazy.” Advertisement Related Video Beyond hitting streaming services, Everything Was Beautiful also ...
Fontaines D.C. Are at the Height of Their Powers With Skinty Fia
Only four years ago, Fontaines D.C. released their first set of singles — one of which being “Boys In The Better Land,” an anthemic romp about the idea that the grass is always greener on the other side. Now, the boys of Fontaines D.C. have moved to London to see for themselves. For their brilliant third album, Skinty Fia—which is undoubtedly their most complex and nuanced album yet—the Irish rockers are digging even deeper into their Irish identity, looking both outward and inward, and offering empathetic observations and plainspoken truths. The expansive sound that Fontaines D.C. employs on Skinty Fia (out Friday, April 22nd) is a logical advancement from 2020’s Grammy-nominated A Hero’s Death, but the storytelling throughout points to a band totally unafraid of the unknown. “There ...
Sergio Vega Further Explains Deftones Exit, Details His New Project
Bassist Sergio Vega has opened up about his departure from Deftones, while also detailing his new musical project. Vega had effectively left the Deftones over a year ago, but only went public with the news in March. In a lengthy video statement, Vega explained that he never became an official member of the band and contract disagreements regarding his position in the group led to his exit. Vega was initially hired by Deftones to fill-in for Chi Cheng, who was in a coma following a 2008 car accident. He remained in the band following Cheng’s passing in 2013. Advertisement Related Video The bassist elaborated on the situation in a new interview with the Talk Toomey podcast (as transcribed by The PRP). As Vega tells it, cutting him into the official Deftones lineup would have affected the sha...
Smashing Pumpkins’ Jeff Schroeder: “We Finished That Big, Epic Album”
Today is one of the greatest days we’ve ever known, because Smashing Pumpkins’ next album isn’t too far away. Speaking recently on the Audio Ink Radio podcast, the band’s guitarist Jeff Schroeder revealed that they’ve finished their next LP. “We finished that big, epic album we were working on,” Schroeder told host Anne Erickson. Though he added that there’s “nothing I can give details on quite yet,” he had previously noted that the long-awaited project is the third in a years-spanning trilogy, following Smashing Pumpkins’ 1995 masterpiece Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness and 2000’s Machina/The Machine of God. It shouldn’t come as too much of a shock that Smashing Pumpkins are still chipping away at new music, considering they’re about to embark on their “Rock Invasion 2 Tour” a...
Editors Add Blanck Mass to Lineup, Release New Single “Heart Attack”: Stream
Editors have promoted longtime collaborator Blanck Mass, aka English electronic producer Benjamin John Power, to a full-time band member and ushered in a new era with their first single in three years, “Heart Attack.” Guitarist and lead vocalist Tom Smith describes their latest offering as “a song of obsession, about losing yourself in someone; a love song, a morbid love song.” Though the subject is dour, there’s no denying the passion behind it as Smith unleashes the blistering refrain of “No one will love you more than I do/ I can promise you that.” The cinematic production’s collage of guitar syncopations, sweeping synths, and propulsive drums form a sheen around the band’s sharp-edged sound, and yet it doesn’t come across as an attempt at dulling it but rather a method to see the barbs...
Greta Van Fleet’s Josh Kiszka Acknowledges Appropriation of Indigenous Culture
Greta Van Fleet singer Josh Kiszka has acknowledged that he appropriated Indigenous culture in the past. The vocalist was the target of a recent hashtag campaign (#SpeakUpGVF) calling for him to address and remove a series of photos on his Instagram page showing him and his friends wearing Indigenous garments back in 2017. The mission statement of the #SpeakUpGVF campaign read, in part, “Indigenous fans and those practicing allyship have tried to contact Josh and ask him to remove the photos and address the cultural appropriation, but he continues to stay silent and the photos continue to stay up. Remaining silent on this is upsetting and is ignorant as it upholds racist ideologies that Indigenous cultures are simply a costume, when they are sacred, and not open for appropriation. Fans cre...
Arcade Fire to Join Saturday Night Live’s Five-Timers Club
Arcade Fire are returning to Studio 8H! On Saturday, NBC revealed the rock band will be back on Saturday Night Live for the May 7th episode opposite host Benedict Cumberbatch. It will mark Arcade Fire’s fifth time serving as the show’s musical guest since they made their SNL debut back in 2007. (Side note: is there an equivalent to the Five-Timers Club for musical guests? Do they get jackets, too?) This time, Win Butler and co. will be promoting their latest album WE, which drops on May 6th (the same day Cumberbatch’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness opens in theaters). Advertisement Related Video This past weekend, Arcade Fire took the stage at Coachella, playing an emotional 13-song set dedicated to the people of Ukraine and Pearl Jam. Lizzo pulled double duty on the latest ep...
Coachella 2022: Billie Eilish Performs Gorillaz’s “Feel Good Inc.” with Damon Albarn
Billie Eilish’s Saturday night headlining performance at Coachella included a surprise appearance from Damon Albarn, who joined the young pop singer to perform Gorillaz’s classic “Feel Good Inc.” Albarn initially joined Eilish on stage to lend vocals to “Getting Older,” from Eilish’s sophomore album, Happier Than Ever. The two, along with De La Soul’s Posdnuos, then launched into a rousing version of “Feel Good Inc.” “[Damon] changed my life in a lot of ways, and changed my view of what music and art and creation could be,” Eilish told the crowd as she introduced Albarn. “My first favorite band ever was the Good, the Bad and the Queen when I was six years-old, and Blur changed the world, and Gorillaz changed the world, and this man is literally a genius, and that’s that.” Advertisement Rel...
Coachella 2022: Arcade Fire Dedicate Emotional Set to Ukraine Punk Bands, Pearl Jam
Arcade Fire treated Coachella to a surprise hour-long set at the Mojave Tent on Friday. The 13-song early evening performance included several songs from the band’s upcoming album WE, including: “The Lightning I,” “The Lightning II,” “Age of Anxiety II (Rabbit Hole),” and “Unconditional I (Lookout Kid).” Arcade Fire re-started the latter song so that frontman Win Butler could recompose himself: “It’s been a hard couple fucking years,” Butler tearfully told the crowd. “We tell ourselves so much poison.” Elsewhere during their set, Butler dedicated the band’s performance of “The Suburbs” to the people of Ukraine. “Everyone in a punk rock band in the Ukraine right now,” he added. “I’m thinking about everybody who is dealing with the war right now.” Related Video Butler also shouted out C...
The Killers Kick Off “Imploding the Mirage Tour” with Raucous Hometown Gig in Vegas: Recap + Photos
It has been said there is nothing quite like a Killers show in Las Vegas, and that statement will echo three times over to sold-out crowds April 15th, 16th and 17th as the city’s unofficial “house band” launches the “Imploding The Mirage Tour” at The Chelsea in The Cosmopolitan. For Friday’s opening night, The Killers showed up with everything which has endeared them to their hometown crowd for more than two decades—a jumping, pumping, sing-along dance party for 3,200 brothers and sisters, neighbors and friends. Frontman Brandon Flowers, backed by drummer Ronnie Vannucci, Jr., and guitarist Dave Keuning delivered a 90-minute, soulful, thunderous, biographical musical journey, performing songs from six of the band’s seven studio albums. (Absent from the setlist, Wonderful Wonderful). Roundi...
Florence + the Machine Kick Off “Dance Fever Tour”: Video + Setlist
Florence + the Machine took the stage at O2 City Hall in Newcastle, UK on Friday night for their first full-band performance in three years. The concert marked the launch of the band’s expansive “Dance Fever Tour” in support of their upcoming album of the same name. As such, the 18-song setlist featured the debut four new songs: lead single “King,” “Heaven is Here,” “Free,” and “Girls Against God,” as well as the full band debut of “My Love.” Elsewhere on the setlist, Florence dusted off “Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up),” “What the Water Gave Me,” and “Spectrum” for the first time in a half a decade, and performed a new version of “Never Let Me Go.” Florence Welch was also forced to restart “What Kind of Man” after forgetting the lyrics, and relied on the front row of the crowd to help he...
