Jehnny Beth’s debut solo album, To Love Is to Live, sounds like it will be a heavy affair. Early singles have all been various levels of intense, from the sensual pulse of “Flower”, to the ominous stalk of “Innocence”, to the thunderous spasms of “I’m the Man”. However, the album’s latest preview, “Heroine”, brings a more melodic air to the affair. To be fair, the Savages singer hasn’t taken her foot off the post-punk pedal for this one — not at all. But with warped jazz horns and undulating baking vocals swirling together over propellant drums, there’s a more hypnotic thrust here. It’s coupled with lyrics that, as Beth explained in a press release, owe a lot to the galvanizing of her collaborators: “When I think of this song, I think of Romy from the xx strangling my neck with her hands i...
Fontaines D.C. will let loose their sophomore album, A Hero’s Death, on July 31st through Partisan Records. As a preview of the follow-up to 2019’s warmly received Dogrel, the post-punk outfit has today unveiled the album’s title track. The forthcoming collection spans a total of 11 songs, produced by Dogrel collaborator Dan Carey (black midi, Bat for Lashes) in his London studio. Whereas the Dublin group’s debut LP bristled with rambunctious and undeterred post-punk, A Hero’s Death is described as a more restrained affair, one that puts an emphasis on patient “spectral balladry.” To tap into this kind of energy during the songwriting process, Fontaines D.C. found inspiration in Leonard Cohen and The Beach Boys, as well as contemporaries like Beach House. The new album is sa...
Wire were all set to drop their 18th studio album 10:20 on Record Store Day. But with that particular holiday delayed and practicing social distancing, the post-punk rockers have now announced that 10:20 will instead be available on all platforms on June 19th. To tide fans over until then, Wire has shared the nearly new song “The Art of Persistence”. Like most of the “strays” being collected on 10:20, “The Art of Persistence” has been around in one form or another for a number of years. It first popped up when the band reconvened in 2000, and made appearances on The Third Day EP (labelled as a “First Draft”) and then as a live performance on Recycling Sherwood Forest as part of Wire’s Legal Bootleg series. Musically, “The Art of Persistence” is a thr...