Notable Releases of the Week (4/18)

Is it really Friday already? I’m still getting my life back together after a weekend of three-hours-of-sleep days in the 100-degree desert for Coachella, where sets from the Misfits, Green Day, Lady Gaga, Charli XCX (ft. Lorde, Billie Eilish & Troye Sivan), The Go-Go’s (ft. Billie Joe Armstrong), Speed, Circle Jerks, Kraftwerk, Jimmy Eat World, and Weezer made it all worth it. (I also spent some time chatting backstage with both Speed and Jimmy Eat World, video of which you can check out on our Instagram.) Amidst all the Coachella madness, it’s been a relatively slower time for new music. Last week had less new albums than usual and that’s true of this week too, but I’ve picked out a few heavy hitters that you can read about below and listen to whenever you’re not watching Coachella’s weekend two livestream.

Bill also tackles a few more records in Indie Basement, including The Convenience, OSEES offshoot Chime Oblivion, and Bill Fox, and this week’s honorable mentions include Melvins (1983 lineup), Kinsella & Pulse LLC (Cap’n Jazz, Joan of Arc, etc), MIEN (The Black Angels, Elephant Stone, Golden Dawn Arkestra & The Earlies), Beirut, Davido, Rhiannon Giddens & Justin Robinson, Tribunal, Popular Music (Zac Pennington), ZORA, Divide and Dissolve, Fools Game, Cumulus, Adrian Younge, Stewart Copeland (The Police), Too $hort, Avery Friedman, Mayday Parade, Hieroglyphic Being, Quickly Quickly, Quade, Real Lies, Little Barrie & Malcolm Catto, Mamuthones, Scrounge, Fotoform, Heaven’s Gate, Gentle Leader XIV, A Bigger Mouth, Domino Kirke, JP Saxe, Inoculation, Lucy Railton, Ancient Death, Rindert Lammers, Heavy Lungs, King Kraken, Gryphon Rue, Taylor Rae, the Blackwater Holylight EP, the Mother Nature EP, the Ostraca EP, the Innervision EP, the Melinda EP, the TAKAAT (of Mdou Moctar) EP, the Cold Meat EP, the Alex Isley EP, the expanded edition of Rocket’s 2023 EP Versions of You, Chat Pile’s Live at Roadburn, and the soundtrack to the new Neil Young documentary Coastal.

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

Julien Baker & Torres – Send a Prayer My Way (Matador)
Two of folky indie rock’s finest singer/songwriters come together for an entry into the queer country canon.

Before everyone started going country, before Chappell Roan had a hit with a lesbian country song, and even before boygenius formed, the seeds were sown for Julien Baker and Torres’ queer country album Send a Prayer My Way. After they played their first show together back in 2016, one said to the other, “We should make a country album.” So you certainly can’t call them bandwagon jumpers and it should also come as no surprise that making full-blown country music comes as naturally to this pair as it does. Julien grew up in Memphis and Torres moved to Nashville after graduating high school, and their music always had a little twang that really comes to the forefront on Send a Prayer My Way. They’ve got pedal steel, fiddle, and honky tonk rhythms, and their country roots are also apparent in the album’s subject matter, which explores Julien and Torres’ shared Southern Baptist heritage as queer people and the skeletons buried there. Both artists are known for vulnerable lyricism, and they bring that to this collaboration, delving into addiction and shame while also seasoning it with dark humor–like “Tuesday”‘s segue from a dark night of the soul to “if you ever hear this song, tell your mama she can go suck an egg,” or the skit about the viscousness of jelly before “Goodbye Baby.” And even if you’re a Julien Baker or Torres fan that hasn’t fully jumped on the country train, there’s plenty to like about Send a Prayer My Way. It often balances out its twang with the kind of folky indie rock that Julien and Torres both separately won us over with in the previous decade. It’s easy to see why they wanted to work together after sharing the stage for the very first time; they’re kindred spirits. [Andrew Sacher & Amanda Hatfield]

Send A Prayer My Way by Julien Baker & TORRES

Superheaven – Superheaven (Blue Grape)
The “grungegaze” pioneers entirely meet the moment on their first album in 10 years.

In the decade since Superheaven last released an album, they’ve become massively influential and bigger than ever. Their mix of post-hardcore, grunge, and shoegaze paved the way for what’s now often called “grungegaze,” and the TikTok-driven success of their especially shoegazy 2013 deep cut “Youngest Daughter” helped bring in a whole new generation of Superheaven fans. With their self-titled comeback album, they totally meet the moment with an album that picks up where they left off and fits right in with the current scene of punk-informed, guitar-based, underground rock music that Superheaven themselves helped pave the way for. Read my new feature on the album for much more.

Pick it up on grape vinyl in the BV shop.

Superheaven by Superheaven

Tunde Adebimpe – Thee Black Boltz (Sub Pop)
The TV On The Radio singer helps fill his main band’s decade-plus void of new music with his searing solo debut.

TV On The Radio made a triumphant return last fall with a run of shows that kicked off their ongoing tour schedule. It’s not necessarily a “reunion,” but the band hadn’t played live in five years and it’s been over a decade since they released an album. Still no word on a new LP, but in the meantime, singer Tunde Adebimpe (who’s also been ramping up his acting career) has just released his debut solo album, Thee Black Boltz. Not to take away from the unique chemistry that TVOTR have, but it often scratches the same itch as Tunde’s main band with its rock-solid batch of searing indie-art rock songs. Read Bill’s review in Indie Basement for more.

Thee Black Boltz by Tunde Adebimpe

Iron Lung – Adapting // Crawling (Iron Lung Records)
The long-running powerviolence duo’s first LP in 12 years is a gnarly, nasty concept album inspired by the pandemic and America’s healthcare system.

The last quarter-century of hardcore wouldn’t be the same without the fiercely-DIY Seattle powerviolence duo Iron Lung. From their whiplashing-inducing records and live shows to the record label they run, they’re basically an institution, though the once-prolific band slowed down their output in more recent years. It’s been 12 years since their last album, 2013’s White Glove Test, and in that time they’ve mostly only released a few brief EPs/singles and played one-off shows. But now they’re back and they’re as pissed-off as ever. They began writing Adapting // Crawling in 2020, around the time that the world shut down for 18 months, and they came out with a gnarly, nasty concept album directly inspired by the pandemic and America’s healthcare system. It’s grand in scope, while also capturing the same raw, unpolished energy as the duo’s live show, fueled both by high-speed madness and utter despair. With most songs clocking in under one minute, Adapting // Crawling is quickly over and done with but its pure fury is just enough to offer some solace from the generally-miserable state of affairs.

Adapting // Crawling (LUNGS-300) by IRON LUNG

XweaponX – Weapon X Demo 2 (DAZE)
The Knocked Loose offshoot’s surprise new demo has five tracks of badass metallic hardcore with contributions from Earth Crisis and Human Garbage.

Even as Knocked Loose are bigger and busier than ever, the members still find time for other, smaller projects, like their straightedge metallic hardcore band XweaponX, which features Knocked Loose lead vocalist Bryan Garris on bass, KL guitarist/backing vocalist Isaac Hale on guitar, Dave Baugher on vocals, and Bryan’s brother Trey Garris (also of Gates To Hell) on drums. It’s a thrill when you get to hear Bryan and Isaac’s very recognizable voices in this grittier context, like on recent single “Everybody Breaks,” and Dave’s own ferocious bark is just as commanding. Today they surprise-released a new demo featuring “Everybody Breaks” and four other tracks, including collaborations with vegan straightedge legends Earth Crisis and LA hardcore band Human Garbage. The whole thing is badass, no-bullshit metallic hardcore that sounds built for riotous mosh pits and also sounds pretty damn great coming out of my laptop speakers this morning.

Weapon X Demo 2 by xWeaponx

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Read Indie Basement for more new album reviews, including The Convenience, OSEES offshoot Chime Oblivion, and Bill Fox.

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

Looking for a podcast to listen to? Check out our new episodes with Turnover and Bayside about the 10th anniversary of Peripheral Vision and the 20th anniversary of Bayside self-titled, respectively.

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, and browse the BrooklynVegan shop for more exclusive vinyl.