Cable Ties "Far Enough (Merge)"
From Merge Records:
The second album from Melbourne, Australia’s Cable Ties brings a towering wall of ’70s hard rock and proto-punk to songs that explore hope, despair, and anger but offer no easy answers. Cable Ties’ fundamental elements—a driving rhythm section, anxious and emotive guitar playing, defiant, passionate songwriting, and Jenny McKechnie’s earthshaking voice—are complicated on Far Enough by nuance and ambivalence.
Check out “Sandcastles.”
Waxahatchee "Saint Cloud (Merge)"
From Merge Records:
Waxhatchee’s Saint Cloud is an unflinching self-examination whose raw, exposed narrative terrain is aided by a shift in sonic arrangements. While her last two records (Out in the Storm and Ivy Tripp) featured the kind of big guitars, well-honed noise, and battering sounds that characterized her Philadelphia scene and strongly influenced a burgeoning new class of singer-songwriters, Saint Cloudstrips back those layers to create space for Katie Crutchfield’s voice and lyrics. The result is a classic Americana sound with modern touches befitting an artist who has emerged as one of the signature storytellers of her time.
Check out “Lilacs.”
Eye Flys "Tub Of Lard (Thrill Jockey)"
From Thrill Jockey:
In just over a year since their initial inception, Eye Flys have established themselves as a force beyond reckoning. Their debut full-length Tub of Lard is stunningly potency full of piss and vinegar, scientific in its ability to pulverize everything in its path. Due in part to the considerable pedigree of the band’s lineup (including members of Full of Hell, Backslider, Triac), the east coast-based quartet chew through steel-barbed riffs and off-kilter rhythms with exponential force. Their 2019 debut EP Context set an early precedent for just how lean and ruthless they can be. On Tub of Lard, Eye Flys launch that potential into 10 songs of maximum impact that find both raw power and subtlety in their simplicity.
Check out “Tubba Lard.”
Mint Mile "Ambertron (Comedy Minus One)"
From Comedy Minus One:
Mint Mile is helmed by Tim Midyett, who spent eighteen years in the acclaimed Silkworm, eight more in the critically lauded Bottomless Pit and currently plays bass with SUNN O)))).
After three four-song EPs in as many years, Mint Mile piles up the tunes on Ambertron with over an hour of music across this sprawling, dare-we-say epic double LP. From stripped-down twisters to languid drifters to opulent jams alternately joyous, gripped, hopeful and desolate, Ambertron explores the optimistic, rueful space between the personal and global, the emotional and political, and the places (sometimes dark) where memory and reality meet and sometimes disagree with each other.
Baritone guitar, pedal steel, rock solid rhythms predominate, with keyboards, strings, horns, and atmosphere woven into the mix as expert spices.
Check out “Fallen Rock.”