Touché Amoré have shared the latest single, “I’ll Be Your Host”, from their upcoming new album Lament (out October 9th). “I’ll Be Your Host” is another emotional tour de force from the screamo veterans. It follows the pattern of excellence laid out by previous singles, “Deflector” and “Limelight” — tracks that placed Lament firmly among our most anticipated fall metal albums. The track is multidimensionally meta, concerning singer Jeremy Bolm’s meditations on how his lyrics and songs affect listeners. The title, “I’ll Be Your Host”, becomes quite literal, with Bolm grasping how fans might “find catharsis in their own loss while he is still processing and dealing with his grief,” according to the press release. Likewise, he explores how that dynamic affects himself in turn. “‘I’ll Be Y...
British glam rockers The Struts have announced their third studio album. It’s called Strange Days and it’s due out October 16th via Interscope. While there’s only a few weeks to go until that release date, The Struts have decided to share the record’s title track featuring Robbie Williams now so that fans can bask in the unique timeliness of the tender anthem. Remarkably, Strange Days was created during the coronavirus quarantine. As such, several of the full-length’s 10 songs touch upon what it’s like riding the emotional rollercoaster that is this year. And while “Strange Days” is a bittersweet epic about finding solace in gratitude, the other tracks tread on different themes with different collaborators, including Albert Hammond Jr., Tom Morello, and Joe Elliott and Phil Collen of Def L...
FINNEAS has returned with a new song and his first major solo release of the year, “What They”ll Say About Us”. Even after wining five Grammys, the 23-year-old ghostwriter is still best known as the brother of Billie Eilish. But although he continues to be a producer in demand, recently FINNEAS has put more work into his solo career. Just last month, his 2019 Blood Harmony EP got a second life with a digital reissue that included a new version of “Let’s Fall in Love for the Night (1964)”. “What They’ll Say About Us” is his first all-new single of 2020, as well as a heartfelt reaction to a world in chaos. The track is a searching piano ballad, written in reaction to Black Lives Matter protests and the saga of Broadway actor Nick Cordero, who died in July of complications caused by...
Adrianne Lenker of Big Thief has revealed two new solo albums, songs and instrumentals. Both projects are due out October 23rd, and Lenker has provided a preview with the new single “anything”. This wasn’t part of the plan. Lenker had hoped to be on tour with Big Thief most of this year, capitalizing on the success of their twin 2019 releases U.F.O.F. and Two Hands. But when the pandemic scuttled that trek, the notoriously prolific songwriter retreated to a one-room cabin in the mountains of western Massachusetts. With the help of engineer Philip Weinrobe, she embarked on an all-analog (AAA) recording process. They began each day with an improvised acoustic jam, and they ended each session with the same. These off-the-cuff explorations landed on the instrument...
As the global pandemic continues around the world with lives lost every day, Finneas has released “What They’ll Say About Us,” a song that aims to offer comfort to those who have lost someone due to COVID-19. Finneas said in a statement about “What They’ll Say About You”: “I wrote this song in June after spending the day at a protest in Downtown LA, filled with hope with the prospect that millions of people were coming together from all over the world to fight against institutionalized racism and inequality. During that time, I’d also been following Amanda Kloots as she documented her husband Nick Cordero’s time in the ICU while in a coma after being admitted for COVID-19. Imagining her sitting by his side, waiting, hopeful for him to wake up, it got me thinking about all the millions of p...
Hot Chip has given The Velvet Underground’s “Candy Says,” off their 1969 album, Boston Tea Party (Live), the electronic treatment. Despite adding more tech to the sound, they stay fairly faithful to the original, which was a song the UK band used to play in their younger years. “Candy Says” is the lead track to announce Hot Chip’s latest compilation, Late Night Tales, dropping Oct. 2. Fever Ray, Nils Frahm and Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith have contributed mixes to the record. “We’ve put together a mix of music which ties all of these ideas together and represents some of our favourite [sic] music new and old, some of it directly influential on Hot Chip and some of it music we have discovered and loved, been surprised by and connected to,” band co-founder Alexis Taylor said in a statement. “The...
Last month, Eels returned with their surprise single “Baby Let’s Make It Real”. It turns out the project’s first track since 2018’s The Deconstruction is actually the A-side to a new 7-inch single. Today, the Mark Oliver Everett-led outfit has unveiled the B-side, “Who You Say You Are”. Like “Baby Let’s Make It Real”, “Who You Say You Are” is a mellow love song. Where the A-side finds E ready to make the jump, however, the B-side finds him a mite bit unsure about his paramour. Over a few wallowing guitar notes, he sings, “Are you who I think you are/ Someone I’ll know for long/ Or someone who doesn’t deserve/ A song.” “Here’s a way to forget your troubles for two minutes and 55 seconds,” E said of “Who You Say You Are”. “Listen to this song and think about my problems instead. You’re welco...
This past May saw Pure X return with their first album in six years. It turns out fans won’t have to wait nearly as long for a follow-up release, as the Austin natives have just announced a new rarities compilation: Rare Ecstasy 2009-2019 is due out October 16th through Fire Talk. The forthcoming project collects 12 “recordings and rarities” from throughout the indie rock group’s decade-long career. Per a press release, these songs “embody the Pure X sound” and offer up “a raw emotive portrait” of the band’s evolution over the years. As a teaser of this Pure X collector’s item, their cover of Willie Nelson’s 1965 song “One Day at a Time” has been revealed. Mirroring the outfit’s past efforts, this rendition conjures up a wall-of-sound atmosphere, as though it were recorded in some smoky ca...
It’s been 15 long years since Arab Strap dropped new material. That changes today with “The Turning of Our Bones”, their first release since the 2005 album The Last Romance. “WE’RE BACK FROM THE GRAVE AND READY TO RAVE,” the Scottish outfit announced on Instagram on Tuesday. And they weren’t kidding about the rave part. Arab Strap’s music, composed by primary members Aidan Moffat and Malcolm Middleton, helped define the sadcore genre in the late ’90s and early 2000s. However, “The Turning of Our Bones” represents a striking evolution in their sound, as the two musicians now employ electronic drums, disco strings, and bongos that take on a more urgent tone. In a press release, Moffat said the song is an “incantation, a voodoo spell to raise the dead. Inspired by the Famadihana ritual o...
This past spring, electronic music producer Actress shared a mixtape called 88. Proving he’s not quite done with 2020, the English artist has now announced a new full-length album: Karma & Desire is expected to arrive next month through Ninja Tune. According to a cryptic statement, the upcoming LP is “a romantic tragedy set between the heavens and the underworld.” Its 17 songs are said to carefully examine “the same sort of things that I like to talk about – love, death, technology, the questioning of one’s being.” The producer born Darren J. Cunningham is assisted on the album by Zsela and Aura T-09. Mercury Prize-winning R&B crooner Sampha also appears, contributing to lead single “Walking Flames”. A meditative number featuring strings and mellow, muted percussion, today’s offeri...
Boston-based trans musician Anjimile is just weeks away from dropping his debut album, Giver Taker. A collection of songs about self-discovery, including reflections on his own transition, the LP is being previewed today with “In Your Eyes”. Although it shares a name with that one Peter Gabriel hit, today’s single is neither a cover, nor about “the light, the heat.” Instead, it’s about the indie songwriter’s encounters with prejudice and the way his mere existence is questioned regularly. “Getting right in your eyes/ Spitting right in your eyes/ Does my body divide? Was my body denied?” he sings in a soft coo à la Sufjan Stevens, but with a noticeable heaviness in his heart. “This is another song about grappling with homophobia and ultimately recognizing that I am what I am,” Anjimile...