Notable Releases of the Week (3/21)

It’s been a busy week in which WU LYF and Portraits of Past announced reunion tours, Kim Gordon & Kim Deal performed together for apparently the first time ever, Steve Aoki confirmed himself as the purchaser of the $23,433 Cap’n Jazz painting, and it was revealed that Radiohead are seemingly making their comeback.

As for this week’s new albums, it’s a very big week. Between Notable Releases and Bill’s Indie Basement, we’ve got 20 new reviews today. See what Bill had to say about The Horrors, Greentea Peng, Dutch Interior, Cousines Like Shit, Jeffrey Lewis, Cross Record, Desire, Brian D’Addario (The Lemon Twigs), Ed Kuepper (The Saints) & Jim White (Dirty Three), and Broadcast’s classic The Noise Made by People (for its 25th anniversary) over in the basement, and find my picks below.

On top of everything we reviewed, here are this week’s honorable mentions: My Morning Jacket, Men I Trust, Selena Gomez & Benny Blanco, Bodybox, Imperial Triumphant, SpiritWorld, Bathe, Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, Dead Bars, Greer, Benefits, Macie Stewart, Pictoria Vark, Damion, Kassian, Kinlaw, Lola Kirke, The Twistettes, The Taxpayers, Sharp Pins, Ora the Molecule, Crossed, Tamino, Lucy Liyou, Lil Bean, Hiroshi Yoshimura, Bobby Rush & Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Cradle of Filth, the Phil Cook piano album, the More Eaze & Claire Rousay EP, the Jeremy Bradley Earl (Woods) EP, the Azshara EP, the Ill Natured EP, the Iron Form EP, the Bad Breeding EP, the Jessica Simpson EP, Flying Lotus’ Ash soundtrack, and the Tina Turner Private Dancer 40th anniversary box.

Read on for my picks. What’s your favorite release of the week?

Weatherday – Hornet Disaster (Topshelf)
One of the year’s most interesting “Midwest emo” albums comes from an enigmatic, genre-blurring artist based very far away from the American Midwest

“This is a scene with a lot of heart,” Weatherday’s sole member Sputnik sings over and over towards the end of “Green Tea Seaweed Sea.” I’m not 100% sure if they’re talking about the DIY emo scene, but it’s pretty easy to read it that way. When the Swedish artist first stirred up buzz for their 2019 debut album Come In, they weren’t really involved in any scene at all. Since then, they put out a collab EP with Seoul artist Asian Glow (who’s also a collaborator of Weatherday’s Topshelf labelmate Parannoul) and a four-way split with US bands Oolong, Michael Cera Palin, and Camp Trash. They also came over to the US to share stages with all three of those bands, as well as others like Newgrounds Death Rugby, Your Arms Are My Cocoon, Ben Quad, and Hey ily!, all the while finding a place in a scene that stretches all across the globe but feels tight-knit thanks to the power of the internet. Weatherday also, as Sputnik recently told Eli Enis in an interview for Stereogum, got even more into emo. “On Come In, I didn’t know how to do a lot of the [emo] tropes,” they said. “Otherwise I would have had more Midwest emo tropes, a lot more twinkling and stuff like that.”

On sophomore album Hornet Disaster, the Midwest emo tropes are a lot more overt, and they’re stirred into a melting pot that stretches from explosive noise pop to shambolic bedroom folk. It’s one of the most interesting new emo albums I’ve heard in a while, and despite Sputnik themselves using the word “trope,” it really doesn’t neatly fit in with any established wave or offshoot of the genre. It’s spiritually similar to post-emo genre-blurrers like Home Is Where and glass beach, as ramshackle and noodly as Cap’n Jazz and Algernon Cadwallader, and often as sweetly melodic as emo-popsters like Modern Baseball and Taking Back Sunday. It captures all of those thrills, and it still never sounds like any one of those bands in particular.

From the album title to the cover artwork (a drawing of a character that Sputnik created on Come In) to the music itself, Hornet Disaster is a tangled web of recurring themes, some fictional or metaphoric and others that work through real-life emotions and struggles. With 19 songs in 76 minutes, I admittedly think it can be a lot for one listen, but all the material is strong. If you give it the attention it asks for, or maybe listen in smaller doses, it’s all worth it.

Hornet Disaster by Weatherday

Japanese Breakfast – For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women) (Dead Oceans)
It’s the quietest, earthiest, most intimate Japanese Breakfast album to date, and as the title suggests, it’s one of her saddest too

Michelle Zauner came closer to a bonafide pop song than ever before with “Be Sweet” off her 2021 Japanese Breakfast album Jubilee, and the combined success of Jubilee and her hit memoir Crying In H Mart has made Michelle bigger than ever. But instead of chasing the very real potential of pop stardom, she goes in the opposite direction with For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women), delivering her quietest, earthiest, most intimate album to date. Produced by Blake Mills, it finds her with one foot in gentle indie folk and the other in sweeping balladry, plus maybe a toe dipped into alt-country on the propulsive standout “Picture Window.” It also has a duet with The Dude himself, Jeff Bridges, on “Men In Bars.” As the album title makes very clear, sadness is the prevailing theme here, and the somber mood suits the lyrical explorations of what she calls “this pensive, anticipatory grief about the passage of time… a specific kind of feeling of being sort of on edge.” It lacks the immediacy of the first three Japanese Breakfast albums, and it seems like that was kind of the point. It’s not as drastic of an anti-fame album as the new Ethel Cain, but you do get the sense that For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women) was at least partially born out of a desire to escape the spotlight.

For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women) by Japanese Breakfast

YHWH Nailgun – 45 Pounds (AD 93 / Many Hats)
The hotly-tipped Brooklyn experimentalists follow up on a string of hyped singles with their anticipated debut album

No, you did not just time-travel back to 2004. It’s 2025 and there’s a hot, new, experimental indie rock band from Brooklyn making waves, getting UK press hype, and coming fresh off being an It Band at SXSW. They’re called YHWH Nailgun (pronounced “Yahweh,” as in God), and since 2023, they’ve been rolling out singles that now appear on their anticipated debut album, 45 Pounds. They make dark, industrial-tinged art rock that would’ve fit in nicely on a warehouse show with Xiu Xiu, Black Dice, or Liars in the early/mid 2000s, and their songs are fueled by pounding polyrhythms that you can trace back to the Talking Heads or any of the many Talking Headsian bands that emerged in the aughts. The 20-year nostalgia cycle that made Davids Byrne and Bowie so influential on indie rock in the mid 2000s has now made the Meet Me in the Bathroom generation a well to be tapped for influence, and YHWH Nailgun’s music sounds as romantically driven by the city of rats, roaches, and endless possibilities as those bands did. Listening to 45 Pounds, you can visualize the brick-walled streets, hear the rumblings of a subway train, and smell the sweat of a crowd in an oversold abandoned factory. The songs are intense, and the band’s style is alluring and cool. 45 Pounds isn’t exactly a perfect debut album; it’s a little one-note, it could use some more memorable hooks, and sometimes YHWH Nailgun’s cool style supersedes their substance. But as far as cultivating a vibe goes, this is a band who already make that seem effortless.

45 Pounds by YHWH Nailgun

PremRock – Did You Enjoy Your Time Here…? (Backwoodz)
The NYC rapper and ShrapKnel member returns with another masterclass in psychedelic post-boom bap

If you’ve caught on to NYC-via-Pennsylvania rapper PremRock in the past few years, it might be because of the rise of ShrapKnel, his duo with Curly Castro. But he’s been putting out solo albums for much longer than that, and this week he returns with his first one since 2021’s Load Bearing Crow’s Feet. Prem packs so much into his lyricism–wordplay, double and triple entendres, tongue-twisters, grin-inducing references–so Did You Enjoy Your Time Here…? isn’t the kind of album that’s built to be digested quickly, but even after just a few listens, it’s clear that this is up there with any of his best work. The psychedelic, post-boom bap production is immaculate (with beats from Blockhead, YUNGMORPHEUS, Child Actor, Controller 7, ELUCID, Willie Green, and more), and Prem’s nearly-endless arsenal of thought-provoking bars are matched in impact by a very impressive cast of guests, including Pink Siifu, Cavalier, Nappy Nina, Illogic, AJ Suede, Prem’s Backwoodz label boss billy woods, and his aforementioned ShrapKnel partner Curly Castro. Prem namedrops the Wayne Shorter classic Speak No Evil near the start of this album, and it’s fitting because there are some parallels to be drawn between present-day Backwoodz and the heyday of Blue Note. Each album has its leader, but it’s the whole community of artists that comes together on album after album that makes the whole catalog so strong and unique.

Did You Enjoy Your Time Here…? by PremRock

Young Widows – Power Sucker (Temporary Residence Ltd)
The noisy, sludgy post-hardcore vets pick up where they left off on their first album in 11 years

Louisville’s Young Widows arrived in the mid 2000s (out of the ashes of Breather Resist) as purveyors of a kind of noisy, sludgy post-hardcore that tipped its hat to the likes of The Jesus Lizard, the Melvins, Swans, and Unsane, and in the 11 years since they’ve been gone, that exact type of music hasn’t lost one ounce of its caustic charm. Last year that flame was kindled by The Jesus Lizard’s first album in 26 years, new-school torch-carriers Chat Pile’s second album, and more, and now we get the first album in 11 years from Young Widows. And just like with that Jesus Lizard comeback album, they pick right back up where they left off. The rhythm section is pummeling, the guitar work is ear piecing, and there’s as much sneering venom in Evan Patterson’s voice as ever.

Power Sucker by Young Widows

Saba & No ID – From The Private Collection of Saba and No ID (self-released)
The godfather of Chicago hip hop and one of the city’s more recent torch-carriers come together for a lush, soulful, multi-generational Chicago rap album

Chicago rap as we know it wouldn’t sound the way it does without No ID, who produced the first three Common albums in the ’90s and mentored a young Kanye West before going on to work with rappers from all over, including Jay-Z, Drake, Vince Staples, and countless others. Chicago rapper Saba has been a staple of the city’s newer generation for the past decade-plus, and now the two have teamed up for a long-in-the-works collaborative album. No ID crafts an organic backdrop of soul/jazz/funk-inspired instrumentals, and the comparatively-younger Saba is an old-soul rapper that’s perfect for this kind of thing. (It’s fitting that he’s celebrating the album with live-band shows at NYC’s Blue Note Jazz Club.) There’s also a series of soulful singers on the album, including BJ the Chicago Kid, Raphael Saadiq, Kelly Rowland, Madison McFerrin, Ibeyi, Eryn Allen Kane, and others, who help add to the lush warmth of it all. It’s a love letter to a long history of Chicago rap, and it’s also a unique record in the context of where rap in general is at today. Speaking to Billboard about if the album has a theme, Saba said, “The concept is just me and No ID having fun through the artform, showcasing how we hear hip-hop in 2025.”

Lonnie Holley – Tonky (Jagjaguwar)
The cult artist returns with another daring, guest-filled album, ft. billy woods, Open Mike Eagle, Modest Mouse’s Isaac Brock & more

The storied, veteran outsider artist Lonnie Holley is back with another stirring album, filled with a variety of guest musicians from the newer generations that have helped turn Lonnie into a cult hero. Indie-rappers billy woods and Open Mike Eagle join Lonnie’s own commanding voice over ambient, avant-garde soundscapes. Modest Mouse’s Isaac Brock assists him on the heart-pounding tribal soul of “What’s Going On?”. Jazz innovators Angel Bat Dawid and Alabster DePlume and hypnotic harpist Mary Lattimore add to the aural swell of it all too. Over a decade into his resurgence, Lonnie remains as boldly out of step as ever, and each album is as daring as the next.

Tonky by Lonnie Holley

Corpus Offal – Corpus Offal (20 Buck Spin)
The debut LP from this new Cerebral Rot offshoot is an onslaught of gruesome, ghastly death metal

Last year, Seattle death metal band Cerebral Rot broke up and two members (lead guitarist/vocalist Ian Schwab, and guitarist Clyle Lindstrom) formed Corpus Offal, alongside Jesse Shreibman (Bell Witch, Autophagy) and bassist Jason Sachs (ex-Demoncy). They dropped a demo in March (that Power Trip’s Chris Ulsh called one of the year’s 10 best releases), and now they follow it with their self-titled debut LP. The demo was a gnarly display of gruesome, ghastly death metal, and the album delivers on that promise, with ever-so-slightly less swampy production thanks to the famed Billy Anderson (Neurosis, Eyehategod, High On Fire, etc).

Corpus Offal by Corpus Offal

Gates To Hell – Death Comes To All (Nuclear Blast)
Death metal with clarity and brutality in equal measure

If you’d like some death metal that’s less swampy and has more of a crisp, metalcore attack, let me point you in the direction of the new Gates To Hell. The Louisville band (who, fun fact, includes drummer Trey Garris, brother and XweaponX bandmate of Knocked Loose vocalist Bryan Garris) stirred up buzz with their 2022 self-titled debut LP that led to signing with the great underground death metal label Maggot Stomp, and now they make their Nuclear Blast debut with Death Comes To All. Produced by Randy LeBoeuf (The Acacia Strain, Jesus Piece, Dying Wish, etc), it ups the band’s clarity without sacrificing the brutality. If you like the direction that Undeath went in on their last album and haven’t checked out the new Gates To Hell, take note.

Death Comes To All by Gates to Hell

Vijay Iyer & Wadada Leo Smith – Defiant Life (ECM)
The jazz duo’s first collaborative album in eight years was written in response to “the past year’s cruelties”

Back in the 2000s, now-veteran jazz pianist Vijay Iyer spent time playing in the band of then-already-veteran trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith, who’d been recording music since the late 1960s, and in 2016 they teamed up for the great collaborative album A Cosmic Rhythm with Each Stroke. Now, eight years later, they’ve made a second album together. Vijay says the making of the album “was conditioned by our ongoing sorrow and outrage over the past year’s cruelties, but also by our faith in human possibility,” and as a result, the music on Defiant Life finds a balance between somber, unsettling, and hopeful. With Smith on trumpet and Iyer on piano, Fender Rhodes, and electronics (and no drummer or bassist), the duo can be found engaging in avant-garde musical dance-offs, providing eerie ear-piercing ambience, and even crafting a little meditative beauty. It’s a sign of the times by design, so it’s no surprise that it’s rarely easy listening.

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Read Indie Basement for more new album reviews, including The Horrors, Greentea Peng, Dutch Interior, Cousines Like Shit, Jeffrey Lewis, Cross Record, Desire, Brian D’Addario (The Lemon Twigs), and Ed Kuepper (The Saints) & Jim White (Dirty Three).

Looking for more recent releases? Browse the Notable Releases archive.

Looking for a podcast to listen to? Check out our new episode with Bayside’s Anthony Raneri celebrating the 20th anniversary of their self-titled LP.

Pick up the BrooklynVegan x Alexisonfire special edition 80-page magazine, which tells the career-spanning story of Alexisonfire and comes on its own or paired with our new exclusive AOF box set and/or individual reissues, in the BV shop. Also pick up the new Glassjaw box set & book, created in part with BrooklynVegan.