New Particles hand-snatched from the tube of the Large Genre Collider for the week ending 2015-12-04. This is what I am listening to in the universe where I have time to listen to all of this and still everything else.
| 1 |
Primal Fear |
"In Metal We Trust" |
single |
I've come to appreciate increasingly abstruse and obscure metal, but I haven't lost the visceral reaction of excitement to unapologetic joyful bombast, exemplified by the goofywonderful new Primal Fear song. |
| 2 |
KAUAN |
"Akva" |
Sorni Nai |
Arguably the opposite extreme of metal is this sensuous, often near-ambient folk-post-metal meditation by Kauan. |
| 3 |
Coronatus |
"Lady of the Wall" |
Raben Im Herz |
Bombast without machismo was a pretty good innovation in metal, I think. German gothic operatic metal mainstays Coronatus change members but somehow keep the same sound and the same logo font. |
| 4 |
Dream Theater |
"The Gift Of Music" |
single |
Oh god, for a moment I thought "The Gift of Music" was going to be a Christmas song, but it's actually Dream Theater's answer to "Magic Power". |
| 5 |
Amoral |
"Rude Awakening" |
single |
Amoral make throaty progcore. |
| 6 |
Maria Mena |
"Good God" |
Growing Pains |
Maria Mena makes me think of Alanis Morissette with more Joni Mitchell, or Natalie Imbruglia with more Patty Larkin. |
| 7 |
Geographer |
"Cloudbusting" |
Endless Motion Vol. 1 5 |
The new Geographer EP has a lavishly spare "Cloudbusting" cover. |
| 8 |
Sunn 0))) |
"Kannon1" |
Kannon |
The new Sunn 0))) noise-drone album is sadly not called "Cloudgrinder". |
| 9 |
Baroness |
"Morningstar" |
single |
I'm definitely warming to these springy, melodic new Baroness songs. |
| 10 |
Hegemon |
"Hatred from the Core: Tempus Incognito" |
The Hierarch |
Hegemon screetch, blast and swallow your head. |
| 11 |
La rappresentante di lista |
"Guardateci tutti" |
Bu Bu Sad |
La Rappresentante di Lista sound to me like Shakira has joined Chairlift. |
| 12 |
Pastilla |
"Amantes En Friccion" |
Sentidos Saturados |
Pastilla make warm, surging Mexican/American alt-rock. |
| 13 |
Antonio Ferrari |
"Noi" |
Quel che di fragile c'è |
Antonio Ferrari steps out of a time-machine from the 80s into an Italian piazza and everybody starts dancing. |
| 14 |
Jesse & Joy |
"No soy una de esas - feat. Alejandro Sanz" |
Un besito más |
Roxette once made the most Swedish-sounding Spanish album ever. Jesse & Joy are what this could have sounded like as a native idea. |
| 15 |
Monica Naranjo |
"Jamás" |
single |
Monica Naranjo has become a classical-crossover artist by crossing over from pop. |
| 16 |
Astropol |
"Make Love Stay" |
The Spin We're In |
Astropol does lo-fi Swedish drum-machine pop like I imagine I would do if I could sing and play and write and produce better. |
| 17 |
The Crookes |
"The World Is Waiting" |
single |
The Crookes blare and twangle. |
| 18 |
Ki:Theory |
"Terraform" |
Terraform +1 |
Ki:Theory is like the indie version of AWOLNATION. |
| 19 |
NateWantsToBattle |
"Reluctant Heroes" |
single |
NateWantsToBattle does cheerful pop-punk anime covers. |
| 20 |
Troye Sivan |
"WILD" |
Blue Neighbourhood |
Troye Sivan would like to be an Australian Justin Bieber, please. |
| 21 |
Kill The Thrill |
"A Little Salt for a Better Feeling" |
Tellurique |
Kill the Thrill do experimental atmospheric post-metal. |
| 22 |
Fakuta |
"Luces de Verano" |
single |
fakuta makes elegantly uncluttered Chilean indie gauze-pop. |
| 23 |
LCMDF |
"Rookie" |
single |
LCMDF are the Finnish Shampoo, and the Finnish Shampoo are sick of Finnish metal dudes. |
| 24 |
Somos |
"Alright, I'll Wait" |
single |
Somos make pingy sigh-pop. |
| 25 |
Punchline |
"Thrilled" |
Thrilled |
Punchline do jerky electro-emo. |
| 26 |
SikTh |
"Behind The Doors" |
Opacities |
SikTh help indjent djent. |
| 27 |
Page |
"Tid för en kyss" |
single |
Page sound nostalgic for all past and future synthpop at once. |
| 28 |
Matias Puumala |
"Nemesis" |
single |
Matias Puumala will do your next apocalyptic cinemastep movie trailer. |
| 29 |
Royal Pirates |
"Let U Go" |
3.3 6 |
Royal Pirates are my new favorite Korean-American indie-rock band. |
| 30 |
Tkay Maidza |
"U-Huh" |
Switch Tape EP 5 |
Tkay Maidza suggests there should be a Zimbabwean/Australian version of grime. |
| 31 |
Mr Traumatik |
"Verbal GBH 4" |
Dark Matters - EP 5 |
Mr Traumatik is already grime in Portsmouth. |
| 32 |
Västerbron |
"Vilse i varuhuset" |
single |
Västerbron is a bridge in Stockholm and a yearningly ragged Swedish post-punk band. |
| 33 |
THCF |
"Nikom Nije Noćas Kao Meni" |
single |
THCF does Serbian trap. |
| 34 |
Toygar Işıklı |
"Med Cezir Jenerik Müziği" |
Med Cezir (Original Tv Series Soundtrack) |
Toygar Işıklı composed the excellent spaghetti-western/pan-celtic/epicore score for a Turkish TV show I don't know anything about and never expect to see. |
| 35 |
FUNKTIONSLUST |
"Continents" |
Window 5 |
FUNKTIONSLUST show that FKA twigs is starting to have influence. |
| 36 |
Zero Call |
"Truth" |
Soft power |
Zero Call make a whole band out of the interstitial bits of M83 and Kraftwerk records. |
| 37 |
Ultima Thule |
"01. Arg" |
Trägen vinner |
Ultima Thule do Viking Oi, which is 90% electrifying and 10% like maybe you're being invited into a worryingly well-organized riot. |
| 38 |
Malrun |
"The Underworld" |
Oblivion Awaits |
Malrun are a Danish epic melodic hard-metalcore-rock band I keep forgetting aren't Spanish. |
| 39 |
Intervals |
"I'm Awake" |
The Shape of Colour |
Intervals do calculated math-jazz prog-post-metal. |
| 40 |
MY RED + BLUE |
"It Was You" |
Closer Now 6 |
MY RED + BLUE dances into arena-pop spotlights. |
| 41 |
Lucius |
"Born Again Teen" |
single |
Lucius snaps crisply amidst circus-wild kaleidoscopic chaos. |
| 42 |
The Cult |
"Deeply Ordered Chaos" |
single |
Apparently the last two albums by The Cult were part of a thematic trilogy. |
| 43 |
Vorna |
"Harmaudesta" |
Ei Valo Minua Seuraa |
Vorna make maniacally raspy Finnish blast-pagan prog-metal. |
| 44 |
Lena Papadopoulou |
"Ekanes" |
single |
I'm a sucker for the combination of rock power and near-Eastern warble, and this is Lena Papadopoulou's mesmerizing Greek version of this synthesis. |
| 45 |
Belako |
"Nomad" |
single |
Belako are a Basque indie-pop band going a bit trance-jam. |
| 46 |
Odio París |
"Camposanto" |
single |
Odio París are actually a shimmery Catalan nu-gaze band. |
| 47 |
Khymera |
"Never Give up on You" |
The Grand Design |
Khymera are a majestically anachronistic melodic AOR glam-metal band. |
| 48 |
Middlepicker |
"Flea Flicker" |
Middlepicker |
Middlepicker place Minneapolis–St. Paul somewhere in between Archers of Loaf and Tullycraft. |
| 49 |
Alpha Consumer |
"In the Age of the Pixel Phone" |
single |
Alpha Consumer are also from Minneapolis, and remind me of Polara, who were also also from Minneapolis, but apparently they're different people. |
| 50 |
BNLX |
"Flextime" |
Flextime (Bnlx EP #9) |
BNLX's most recent EP is from last year, but they are Ed Ackerson's post-Polara band, which I totally didn't know and maybe you didn't either so let's catch up. |
| 51 |
Heloisa Rosa |
"O Seu Caminho" |
single |
I think Heloisa Rosa is historically a Portuguese CCM singer, but I don't speak Portuguese and so don't have to care, and this is a wildly magnificent Iberian-pop/arena-rock song. |
| 52 |
Kianush |
"One Way Ticket" |
single |
If you only listen to American hip hop, you're missing a lot of astonishing stuff, like this cinematically menacing rant by Iranian-German rapper Kianush. |
| 53 |
Gjan |
"Gossip" |
single |
Gjan is Lithuania's answer to Kerli, and now I feel like I should know who I think is Latvia's. |
| 54 |
James TW |
"Torn" |
single |
James Tw does a brittle indie-r&b cover of "Torn". |
| 55 |
SHISHAMO |
"Kimi to Gerende" |
Kimi to Gerende +1 |
Shishamo are a female j-punk band somewhere on the path from Shonen Knife to Tricot. |
| 56 |
Der Dicke Polizist |
"Grenzenlos" |
Naive Automaten 5 |
Der Dicke Polizist is a cheerfully snarly old-school German punk band. |
| 57 |
Neverlight |
"Neverlight" |
Neverlight +3 |
Another of my countless weaknesses is indie gothic symphonic metal bands like Colorado Springs' Neverlight who, whether by choice or necessity, cast their epic musical ambitions in dry, un-epic production treatments. |
| 58 |
Aedliga |
"Invisible Invincible" |
single |
Aedliga is me, and this is my new song, composed by both choice and logistical necessity in my usual studio aboard an Icelandair flight a few days ago, and sung in a stranger's apartment in Stockholm in a race to get usable tracks in few enough takes that the neighbors I don't know don't come over to introduce themselves and tell me what Max Martin would have done. |
