"Heartbeat In the Brain" is one of many tracks the good people at Topshelf Records have seen fit to release onto the Internet from the new The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die album, Whenever, If Ever, which is dropping in June and can be streamed in full here.
The Connecticut band combines elements of emo, indie, and post-rock into a heavy and life-affirming musical experience. Enjoy!
Italy's Blue Willa has an eerie style that I'm digging a lot on this self-titled record of theirs. The folk-inspired simplicity, dissonant guitars, and sharp howls of the project's frontwoman are all too potent to deny. Enjoy!
White+ is an Beijing band, and their color-themed debut album is an intriguing piece of instrumental music, showcasing influences from the world of electronica, krautrock, and avant-garde. Not only can these guys jam, but they draw together some pretty interesting sounds along the way as well. Enjoy!
MiSTOA pOLTSA is a noise and garage rock project, and above, you can stream its seven-track eponymous album.
I suppose the music of MiSTOA pOLTSA could be succinctly described as "unrestrained." "Noisy" doesn't quite cut it when describing the thick yet grimy wall of sound the project creates with its raucous guitars, trashy drums, and distorted bass, and "unsettling" doesn't completely do justice to the unintelligible yet powerful vocals that front it. The songs on this release are generally short, choosing to make their points in an efficiently digested manner. There is, however, a major exception in the form of the last track, "ABIT OFF BLOOD, for the love of god," which builds on a driving repetitive groove with screeching instrumentation and disorienting atmosphere for over nine minutes. It is an effective track not only for its hypnotically compelling effect, but also for showing that the project is capable of more than just brief, catchy songwriting.
Hailing from Melbourne, Australia, King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard is a garage rock group with both noisy elements and pop sensibilities. The band just released 12 Bar Blues, a twelve-track release which you can stream above via their Bandcamp.
King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard's combination of stripped down and distorted instrumentation, psyched-out vocals, poppy melodies, and blood-pumping tempos isn't exactly uncharted territory (think Thee Oh Sees), but that's not to say they don't execute it impressively. In addition to achieving this sound with precise accuracy, largely thanks to their rough-around-the-edges production, the band uses appropriately catchy vocal hooks that make many of these songs spirited earworms. For anyone in the mood for visceral yet accessible garage rock, this should do the trick.
Stream: Grizzly Bear - Shields Thanks to the good folks over at NPR Music, you can now stream Grizzly Bear’s latest studio effort, Shields. The album is the highly acclaimed indie rock band’s fourth full-length album and their debut release on Warp Records. As one might expect from Grizzly Bear, Shields is complex and uncompromising with its psychedelic passages and explorative song structures yet accessible thanks to its exalted sense of grace. While some fans might be disappointed by the record’s focus on baroque instrumentation over the electronic experimentation found on Yellow House--the band did sign to Warp Records after all--it’s difficult to come up with a band that can craft dual-natured songs the way Grizzly Bear can.
American black metal outfit Ash Borer has a new album on the way via Profound Lore, and you can hear a colossal clip of the album's first track above. The 4-track LP will be titled Cold of Ages, which is certainly a fitting title if every track brings the frigid, atmospheric aesthetic the clip above does. Two songs even feature Jessica Way of Worm Ouroboros on vocals as well.
Cold of Ages will be out August 14th.
Stream: mewithoutYou- "East Enders Wives" Another track drops from the forthcoming mewithoutYou album, Ten Stories. It's a quiet contrast from the first song to be released from this album, but no less enthralling as a result. Can't wait to see how all these tracks come together on the album when it's finally out.
Look for Ten Stories on may 15th via Pine Street.