Thank God It's Friday New Releases!
Our award-winning new release roundup comes barreling out of the gate like someone running up the stairs and peeling out in their car. So run up your stairs, peel out to your friend's house and drive to the local record shop for all of these hot platters. Get 'em before they cool down!
Cornershop - England is a Garden (Ample Play)
On their ninth album, this British band continues to make pop music not for just you or me or this group or that group or one country or the other, but for the world.
Luke Haines & Peter Buck - Beat Poetry for Survivalists (Omnivore)
Former R.E.M. guitarist Buck is the new hardest working man in show business. Among his ongoing projects are Filthy Friends, the Minus 5, Arthur Buck, and now this collaboration with Haines, of the Auteurs. (Plus, Buck works behind the board for bands like Eyelids.) If you were to compare this album to anything R.E.M., look to New Adventures in Hi-Fi in terms of experimentalism and atmospherics.
Honey Harper - Starmaker (ATO)
A glam country album, from musical journeyman William Fussell, that would sound fantastic coming out of a single AM radio speaker.
Stephen Malkmus - Traditional Techniques (Matador)
The ex-Pavement singer is a lot like Neil Young, in that he can take on a variety of styles but somehow the music seems to just exist in him, rather than something he creates. This album has a quiet earthiness to it, with touches of ragged guitar, which only seems to further the comparison.
Mandy Moore - Silver Landings (Verve Forecast)
Before she hit it big as an actor, Moore was a pop star up there with Jessica Simpson and Katy Perry. Then she married Ryan Adams, and became something of a case study in the dangers of toxic relationships. Now remarried (to Dawes’ Taylor Goldsmith, a collaborator on this project), Moore has released her first album since 2009 (not coincidently, the year she entered said toxic relationship). Adopting a Laurel Canyon sound, she sings about a life lived, while moving forward with a strong voice no longer to be hushed.
Phantogram - Ceremony (Republic)
New York duo Josh Carter and Sarah Barthel may be an ideal band for today’s festival circuit. Their punchy electronic music is just rock enough to appeal to the indie masses while dancey enough to also work at the silent disco.
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I live in … Bloomingdale IL (a northwest suburb of Chicago)
