Author Archives: theradicalsloth

The Arcs – Electrophonic Chronic

Label: Easy Eye Sound/Concord Release Date: January 27, 2023 The Arcs’ first album since the death of bandmate Richard Swift uses the material they worked on together in this bittersweet tribute. This album can’t help be tinged with deep bittersweetness. However, the record exudes the warmth of an old long-play record. Keep On Dreamin’ kicks […]

Pile – All Fiction

Label: Exploding in Sound Records Release Date: February 23, 2023 Pile is probably your favorite band’s favorite band. All Fiction—a reference to “the lack of any objective reality,” and the worries that accompany parsing truth from tale—is a record that may be Pile’s most vulnerable. This is an experimental and adventurous record. Massive synths, resonant […]

Black Lips – Apocalypse Love

Label: Fire Records Release Date: October 14, 2022 Black Lips are garage rock with a Southern accent. From the label: “The Black Lips return with their 10th studio effort Apocalypse Love, scorched with their trademark menace, it cryogenically mutates all recognized musical bases; it spins yarns about vintage Soviet synths, Benzedrine stupors, coup de’ tats, […]

Archers of Loaf – Reason in Decline

Label: Merge Records Release Date: October 21, 2022 From the label: “Archers of Loaf have released their first new album in 24 years, the long-awaited Reason in Decline. Reason in Decline is not a nostalgic, low-impact reboot but instead an entirely different noise. Guitarists Eric Bachmann and Eric Johnson are now a fluidly complementary, sonically […]

Wet Leg – Wet Leg

Label: Domino Recording Co. Release Date: April 8, 2022 From the label: After releasing two of the hottest singles of 2021 (Chaise Longue and Wet Dream, Wet Leg’s Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers were catapulted from their confines on the Isle of Wight to sold out venues across the UK and packed-out tents at festivals […]

Wilco – Cruel Country

Release Date: May 27, 2022 Label: dBpm Records From the label: Cruel Country is comprised, almost entirely, of live takes, with just a handful of overdubs, and is by Jeff Tweedy’s own definition, the band’s first Country music album.  This feels like fresh territory for Wilco. The album opens with I Am My Mother, a […]

Soul Glo – Diaspora Problems

Label: Epitaph Release Date: March 25, 2022 From the label: Diaspora Problems is only the beginning of what will undoubtedly be a bright future for Soul Glo, as well as a forecast for what the band is capable of musically. Hardcore punk is at the precipice of a sonic revolution as a higher variance of […]

Russian Circles – Gnosis

Label: Sargent House Release Date: August 19, 2022 Post-metal, especially instrumental, has become increasingly vanilla. However, Russian Circles stays grounded in visceral riff-mongering. The band brings power, intensity and nuance to each new record and remains a force to be reckoned with. Gnosis is a potent album in a genre plagued by boringness. Conduit rides a nasty-ass groove […]

Pianos Become the Teeth – Drift

Release Date: August 26, 2022 Label: Epitaph Pianos Become the Teeth continue to drift in the direction of art/indie rock and away from their screamo/post-hardcore roots with their most recent release. Genevieve is driven by an anxious momentum, propelling the lean compositions through frantic emotional beats that feel fresh and unique. The bass work on […]

Marcus King – Young Blood

Release Date: August 26, 2022 Label: Republic Records Marcus King‘s new release, Young Blood proves that he has become a musical juggernaut…plain and simple. On this release, King draws from his musical influences to capture the sound of Jimi Hendrix and ZZ Top. He does not disappoint. Lie Lie Lie is a standout anchored by a […]

Iron & Wine – Lori

Label: Black Cricket Recording Co. Release Date: September 16, 2022 From the label: “Timing they say is everything and as preparations are underway for the fourth – or is it the fifth?– wave of the pandemic, Iron & Wine is finally ready to share their obligatory covid coversrelease in the form of LORI. LORI finds […]

BORIS – Heavy Rocks (2022)

Label: Relapse Records Release Date: August 12, 2022 From the label: “The legendary BORIS celebrate a 30 year career as one of experimental music’s mostforward-thinking, heavy, and innovative bands with the new album Heavy Rocks (2022).” This the third in the series of Heavy Rocks records which takes on ’70s rock and avant-garde, experimental, proto-metal screwballs. Seriously, when […]

Armor For Sleep – The Rain Museum

Release Date: September 9, 2022 Label: Equal Vision Records From the label: “Armor For Sleep’s The Rain Museum is 17 years in the making. It’s a concept album built around a post-apocalyptic world where weather no longer exists on planet earth and people come to a mysterious museum in the middle of the desert to […]

OFF! – Free LSD

Label: Fat Possum Records Release Date: September 30, 2022 Hardcore supergroup OFF! has just released “A Heavy Punk Industrial Free Jazz Soundtrack Recording”. This is a “conceptual work of music that assails the ears and annihilates consciousness” that will be accompanied by a film by the same name. Time Will Come scraps the punk rock […]

Melody’s Echo Chamber – Unfold

Label: Fat Possum Records Release Date: September 30, 2022 French musician Melody Prochet (see Melody’s Echo Chamber), just released Unfold. The album is wonderfully hypnotic and spacey. Described as the “lost follow-up album” to her debut, Unfold was recorded with Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker in Australia in 2013. The relationship didn’t make it through the […]

Elektric Mistress – Chapter 99 (EP)

Label: Self-Released Release Date: June 17, 2022 High energy psychedelic heartache with some witchcraft! From the promoter: Channeling the energy of inspirations such as Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, and Pink Floyd, Halifax, Canada Elecktic Mistress is all about the groove with their face-punching psychedelic stoner rock firmly rooted in what has come before, but also […]

Our Dying World – Hymns of Blinding Darkness

Label: Self-released Release date: June 24, 2022 Our Dying World provides symphonic and melodic keyboard-oriented stylings on Hymns of Blinding Darkness. This record is a mixed bag. Everything We Know is Gone is a perplexing mix of killer guitar riffs and fantasy soundtrack music. The song both rocks and confounds with blazing melodic riffs that […]

Split Image – Torrent of Illusion

Label: Low Budget Productions Release Date: June 1, 2022 With a dash of thrash, punk, crust, and hardcore, Split Image possesses a unique sound that boasts familiarity through thrashy riffs, progressive, technical elements, and a solid nod to old-school hardcore. Torrent of Illusion packs a punch! The record deals with intense lyrical themes surrounding mental health and […]

Mavis Staples & Levon Helm – Carry Me Home

Release Date: May 20, 2022 Label: Anti- From the label: Captured at Woodstock, New York’s Levon Helm Studios in the summer of 2011, Carry Me Home is a new album that showcases the music of Mavis Staples and Levon Helm, two of the past century’s most iconic voices who came together in love and joy, […]

Joyce Manor – 40 oz. to Fresno

Release Date: June 10, 2022 Label: Epitaph From the label: It’s strangely fitting that the title was taken from an auto-corrected text message about Sublime. Those types of happy accidents are all over 40 oz. To Fresno and are worth the subsequent sonic hangover. Vocalist Barry Johnson summarizes, “This album makes me think of our […]

Helms Alee – Keep This Be the Way

Release Date: April 29, 2022 Label: Sargent House Helms Alee mixes sludge, noise, psych, prog, indie, math and more to create a unique and unmistakable product. Over the years this band has evolved and steadily grown. This record may their most experimental record to date. This record is intensely hypnotic. See Sights Smell Smells begins with […]

Cave In – Heavy Pendulum

Label: Relapse Records Release Date: May 20, 2022 From the label: Boston legends CAVE IN makes a highly anticipated return with their Relapse Records debut, Heavy Pendulum, their first full studio record in over a decade. Produced by Kurt Ballou at God City, Heavy Pendulum showcases everything that has long established CAVE IN as one […]

Calexico – El Mirador

Label: Anti- Release Date: April 8, 2022 From the label: Oscillating between haunting desert noirs and buoyant jolts of cumbia, Calexico recently announced their 10th studio album El Mirador. The first single from the record, Harness The Wind, features backing vocals from Iron & Wine’s Sam Beam. This record could be labeled “Arizone noir” and […]

theWorst – Yes Regrets

Label: RascalZRecordZ Release Date: June 3, 2022 theWorst is a indie-punk/rock trio from Portland, ME. Yes Regrets documents vocalist/guitarist Brooke Binion’s road to recovery from drug and alcohol abuse and mental health struggles. Album opener Blacksheepish is a strong start to the album. Energetic and emotional, it’s a tribute to a friend lost to suicide. Monomania combines determined […]

Danny Elfman – Big Mess

Release Date: June 11, 2021 Label: Anti- From the promoter: After releasing a series of singles over the past few months, Danny Elfman is announcing his first solo album in thirty-seven years today, titled Big Mess. A slow burning track, True faces down hopelessness and despair head on. Elfman’s vocals are gritty and growling here, […]