Happy Friday. I haven’t done this in a while (should I do it every week? Seems excessive), this being a round-up of all the new music I’ve been listening to and liking or in some cases absolutely fucking loving to the point that it renews my will live. Music can do this and regardless of how may times I try, a new purchase of whatever the fuck (let’s say, hypothetically, eel loafers from The Row) cannot, and ultimately that’s why I write this kind of Substack instead of that kind. (Will probably still get the loafers though).
For example, this video of Fred Again with The Streets and Underworld doing “Born Slippy” actually added five years to my life (or replaced the five years I previously eroded with Mitsubishis, and according to the top comment on the YouTube of Underworld’s Boiler Room set, I’m not the only one who dreams of the days of pulling my Vicks Vapo Rub out of my red mini Adidas backpack after grinding the floor to dust at the function).
Let’s get into the music:
I’ve been very into picking up whatever Angel Du$t has been putting down for the last few years (“Love Slam” still goes very hard on the gym playlist) but seeing them live a few weekends ago in Boston at the great Something In The Way festival actually felt like microdosing the Limitless drug. This Baltimore band is really checking every box and ringing all my bells right now. They look cool as hell (special shouts to the Pippi Long Stocking guitarist - only a man that tall and broad chested can pull off that hairstyle), their music is tuneful . There’s a visceral quality to the music that is incandescent - it’s like violently alive in a way that presses the defibrillators onto your phone-sick weary doom-scrolled-to-death heart and brings you back vibrating into the real world. Their new album COLD 2 THE TOUCH came out last week and if it doesn’t make you want to run through a wall then you must reading this from the afterlife.
Another set I deeply enjoyed at SITW was How Much Art, the new band from the mayor of Boston hardcore Patrick Flynn of Have Heart and Fiddlehead. It was different in such a cool (and synth-forward) way and I’ve been listening to the two singles they have out, “XO” and “PR”, on repeat. Not content with being just a great frontman and a great history teacher, Patrick Flynn did not come to play on the Bandsplain Emo Draft live from Boston, in which he would have swept the floor with me (and Chris Ryan) if everyone in the audience didn’t still feel bad that my house burned down last year (tiny violin, the most emo instrument of them all).
Fellow Angel Du$t devotee hayley Williams put out a new project called Power Snatch on Bandcamp and I’m really fucking with it.
Another Something In The Way act (really good booking job over there) whose new music I’ve really been using to level set the vibe is GUV. Ben Cook has always transmuted his Anglophilia into beautiful power pop reminiscent of the best of the UK (The La’s come to mind) and this new album feels like he turned his focus to Madchester (no complaints here). At its peaks he hits “I’m on Shaun Ryder’s E at the Hacienda in 1990” levels of musical bliss. At the fest he took the stage in a classic checked Burberry scarf which he theatrically put around a fan in the crowd’s neck only to have the fan abscond with the cashmere (rude). Hope you got it back bruv.
My love for Joyce Manor is well documented and if you haven’t listened to their latest album I Used To Go To This Bar I implore you to correct that. Album closer “Grey Guitar” is an early contender for my song of the year, even if frontman Barry Johnson says it wasn’t consciously inspired by the Counting Crows. (I wanna be a lion). For more on that you can listen to my interview with Barry and also check out his Monday Mixtape.
31 years later there’s a new Help album from the charity War Child. The first one was gorgeously stacked (Noel Gallagher, Paul McCartney, and Paul Weller doing “Come Together”, Terry Hall doing “Dream a Little Dream of Me”) and this new one, HELP (2), is shaping up to be just as legendary. So far we’ve heard songs from Pulp, The Last Dinner Party, Damon Albarn with Kae Tempest and Grian Chattenden of Fontaines D.C., and the first song from the Arctic Monkeys since The Car came out in 2022 (the brilliant “Opening Night”). I’m most looking forward to the Fontaines D.C. cover of the Sinéad O’ Connor banger “Black Boys on Mopeds” and Olivia Rodrigo covering The Magnetic Fields (“Book of Love”!! my girl a real one). Comes out March 6th.
Sabrina Blondshell put me onto this band The Belair Lip Bombs and I’ve been really liking what I’ve heard - I’m reminded of Sharon Van Etten. Also if you’re going to Treefort Fest in Boise next month make sure to come see Sabrina and I do a live episode of Bandsplain on Thursday, March 26 at 6pm at the Podfort.
I’m super late to this but the three singles from the incredible songwriter gone solo Morgan Nagler are so good. Really beautiful, really earwormy, and just 90s enough to entrap me (like a moth to a flame over here).
Deedee from MSPAINT (a band I LOVE and think is actually making genuinely modern rock music) put out a solo album under the moniker Him Horrison and it’s awesome - mooning folk-psych with sci-fi textures.
The new Ratboys album Singin’ to an Empty Chair is wonderful, lovelorn and poppy and expansive.
I really like this new Ringing song “Incandescent”
White Fence hive we are eating because the new single from Tim Presley et al “Your Eyes” bangs.
And last but certainly not least, new Kevin Morby song “Javelin” is gorge. Can’t wait for the album in May.
Okay that’s it for me. Be back Monday with a very exciting Monday Mixtape.
xx
Just purchased a subscription to strongly suggest you buy these E Nolan loafers instead! Similar style, roughly 1/3rd the price, gorgeous, super high quality, and the most comfortable shoes I’ve ever owned. Get a size up. Thank me l8r.
https://enolan.com.au/products/moccasin-dark-brown
Now off to go throw out my back listening to Angel Dust!