None of the members of the brand new Hard Quartet have anything left to prove. Stephen Malkmus has been touring with Pavement for years, and they are still not losing any of their fame. His bandmates - Jim White, Emmett Kelly and Matt Sweeney - have been much sought-after hired guns for decades. For example, Sweeney has worked a lot with Bonnie "Prince" Billy in recent years; White is the inimitable drummer of Dirty Three, among others; and Kelly played as a guitarist with almost the entire Drag City roster.
All of them have a sometimes obscure, experimental repertoire, but on The Hard Quartet the fun reigns. This is ' classic rock comfort food ' - with ingredients as diverse as prog rock, punk, baroque and power pop. Malkmus in particular thrives with his five-star band and sounds looser and more laconic than he has sounded in years. And that is Malkmus at his best. CD / LP
All of them have a sometimes obscure, experimental repertoire, but on The Hard Quartet the fun reigns. This is ' classic rock comfort food ' - with ingredients as diverse as prog rock, punk, baroque and power pop. Malkmus in particular thrives with his five-star band and sounds looser and more laconic than he has sounded in years. And that is Malkmus at his best. CD / LP
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The Brat year is far from over. Not only does Brat And It's The Same But There's Three More Songs So It's Not ( CD / LP ) release today with a number of new bonus tracks, but there's also Brat And It's Completely Different But Also Still Brat - a remix album that features, in addition to Lorde and Billie Eilish, Caroline Polachek, Julian Casablancas, Ariana Grande, The 1975 and Bon Iver. C |
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In the category 'indie electronica', contemporaries Floating Points, Four Tet and now also Caribou are quite emphatically in the middle of their dance phase. The BPMs that Dan Snaith normally saves for his other alter ego Daphni dominate on Honey . Gone is the cautious melancholy of Suddenly . Snaith samples a lot, winks at hyperpop and French house and even throws a rap verse into the mix. CD / LP |
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Lady Gaga 's long-awaited seventh album, her first since 2020's Chromatica , is still a little while away. Luckily, there's an entremet in the form of Harlequin — an album of covers, plus two originals, which Gaga used to live up to her role in Joker: Folie à Deux . This is Gaga on a jazz path — with the Great American Songbook under her arm. Next year, back to Gaga . CD / LP |
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More than six years after their debut, HAEVN could once again find time for a new album, with which they can in turn take a break from the life of the listener. The music of the Dutch duo can certainly be called reflective and soothing; an ethereal, cinematic escape from the hectic pace of everyday life. It sounds like a dream, but may be called Wide Awake . CD / LP |
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Even when De Mannen Broeders , namely Brother Dieleman and Amenra frontman Colin van Eeckhout, do not pick up their instruments (piano, banjo, organ, voice), Sober Maal a mighty soundscape. The echoing, crackling Mennonite church in Middelburg is like a third band member on this pitch-black evangelical folk album that is metal without sounding like metal. CD / LP |
Of course, more came out this week: The Offspring turns the nostalgia machine on Supercharged ( CD / LP ) ; 25-year-old Samara Joy revives the golden era of Blue Note and Impulse on Portrait ( CD / LP ); the shoegazey noise rock of Chat Pile has only become more frustrated on Cool World ( CD / LP ); and Swedish voodoo band Goat puts on their dancing shoes on the album Goat ( CD / LP ).
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English electronic duo Maribou State went into music therapy and made Hallucinating Love (January 31, 2025) an album full of healing anthems. CD / LP |
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Tears of Injustice (February 28, 2025) proves that Mdou Moctar 's overwhelming, political anger also remains acoustically sound. CD / LP |