English newspaper THE TIMES‘s first impressions of
THE ROLLING STONES ‘s new album Foreign Tongues.
It’s out on July 10th.
But first the album’s TRACKLIST.
THE TIMES
Hear the LP’s 2 singles below
– ROUGH AND TWISTED –
– IN THE STARS –
17 June 2026
Band: THE MENZINGERS
Who: Ardent rockers from
Scranton, Pennsylvania.
Album: EVERYTHING I EVER SAW
Their 8th. Out July 17th. Tracklist and
pre-order info here.
Press info: “The new album finds the band entering a new era in what’s already
been a storied career. Their eighth full-length chronicles moments of significant
change, the personal, the political, and the universal, while returning to the core
creative principles that first put them on the map with listeners the world over.
Twenty years in, The Menzingers have discovered that the wisdom gained with
time’s passing is even stronger than the emotional armor they once wore in their
youth, and Everything I Ever Saw captures the quartet embracing the here and now
while strengthening the bonds that have held them together.”
Greg Barnett (guitar/vocals) about the new record: “I want to be able to appreciate, understand, and love everything that we’ve done, as well as where we’re going. It his has
been a huge portion of my life, and everybody has dedicated so much to this band.
It’s going to define who we are for the rest of our lives.”
Singles.
3 fiery, full-blooded
and fervent energizers.
– BETTER ANGELS –
– CHANGE ENCOUNTERS –
– NOBODY’S HEROES –
All 3 on Spotify
16 June 2026
Last year, the brothers Ron (79) and Russell Mael (76), known to the world as SPARKS,
who started their career 59 years ago, released their 28th LP, titled Mad! (stream below)
and took the road afterward for a tour that’s still going.
Now, the Maels have announced a live album. It’s named SPARKS LIVE ON THE MOON.
It’ll drop on planet Earth on September 14th. Pre-order info here.
The double LP comprises a full live set of 20 songs spanning the band’s 59 year career.
Sparks: “After our 2025 World Tour, we accepted an invitation to do a special one-off concert on the Moon, more precisely at the Taruntius Crater, near Mare Fecunditatis. Honored to be the first band to perform on the moon, let alone at the beautiful Taruntius Crater, we couldn’t have imagined the lunar fan interest, with all tickets being grabbed up within an hour. Sit back, close your eyes and imagine the wondrous setting, and enjoy Sparks’ first full concert album, Live On The Moon.”
Enjoy the first preview with Whippings And Memories.
A track from their 1972 LP A Woofer in Tweeter’s Clothing.
Instagram – Spotify – All Albums
.
15 June 2026
Photo by Max Avdeev
You can’t shut up the imperishable Russian collective of political and feminist activists PUSSY RIOT and their global fanbase. This year marks their 15th year of opposition against the Kremlin tyranny.
Last Month, the clamorous PRs showed up at the Venice Biennale, the so-called
“Olympics of the art world”, timed deliberately, to coincide with Russia‘s controversial
return to the event. The stunt made headlines globally.
Mastermind and driving force since day one is NADYA TOLOKONNIK, who spent two years, along with fellow pussy riotiours Yekaterina Samutsevich and Maria Alyokhina, in a
Russian jail for hooliganism motivated by religious hatred after her protest performance
in the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour church in 2012.
Thus far, they have expressed their fierce discontent through several mixtapes,
a series of barbed-wire singles, and countless live protests in their home country,
Ukraine, and the Western world.
And now their pungent debut album CYKA is out.
Tolokonnikova about the LP’s reactionary motivation, the ongoing war with Ukraine:
“Me and my countrymen could have prevented it, we just had to fight harder for our dream
of a peaceful democratic Russia. I live in exile, like a rat. Everything I loved was taken from me; my entire country was stolen. My mother died of cancer in Moscow, and I couldn’t be there to say goodbye.
The father of my daughter nearly died after being poisoned with a nerve agent by the FSB. My friend Alexey Navalny was murdered in jail. And I no longer know whether I’ll ever be able to let people get close to me again – being torn away from everyone I loved cost too much. Vengeance is what forces my eyes open in the morning, and what keeps me going. “OUTRO” is dedicated to my mother and my love to her.‘
TUTV: Don’t expect a clamourous Bikini Kill noise. Only on smoking punk grenades
Faceless Pigs, Disobey, Candy Dopamine and Blizzard) they lash out with rage. Sonically,
CYKA is for the greater part a trip and hop, EBM-orientated record spiked with both, reflective and spiralling synth-orchestrated flare-ups.
Vocally, she alternates bouncy, whispering rap rants with poppy, near-helium-like
echoes. We have a unqiue party album here. One to dance when Putin is going down.
Lyrically Tolokonnikova unravels all her outrage and is on constant attack mode.
She will never quit attacking the Russian dictator (who appears on the title track).
She will never stop exposing his crimes. She’ll never back down. She’s a fearless
warrior. She’s a tenacious bitch. Hail hail.
Singles.
– DISOBEY –
– CANDY DOPAMINE –
.
12 June 2026
Blues rock veteran JON SPENCER has been riffin’ around since 1983. He did so, with…
take a deep breath, his first band Pussy Galore, his gang the Blues Explosion, with his wife Christina Martinez‘s in Boss Hog, with his group the Hitmakers, and now as a trio (under his own name) with Kendall Wind on bass and Spider Bowman on drums.
Their album, called SONGS OF PERSONAL LOSS AND PROTEST, is out now.
Press info: “Garage punk for today, hyper-driven soul and powerhouse grooves,
beats hard as diamonds and slick as ice, fuzz bass in your face, and an avalanche
of uncontrollable urges, pushing Jon’s latest outbursts — hollering, drooling, sexified crooning, and vociferously lamenting these difficult times — to new levels of rock’n’roll expressionism.”
Spencer: “I’m in a time of spiritual reckoning. These past few years, there has been a lot of emotional conflict and personal loss, the passing of time takes its toll. Losing friends, losing family, and all of this set against a world gone topsy-turvy, where it feels like we are losing
basic freedoms I’m trying to balance a lot of things, but the answer is always rock ’n’ roll.”
TUTV: Spencer is fed up, as millions of us, with that monkey in the White House. He totally messed up the world’s balance with trade wars, insulting and intimidating other countries and their leaders for not kissing his fat ass, and with his economically disastrous Iran war, and all this in just 18 months. Whatever disturbs Spencer’s mind, he seeks distraction in his music, as we music junkies do in listening to it.
There’s an abundance of anxiety, anger, and fury to ventilate on this new record, instigating a non-stop riff-licks-hooks flood. Old skool blues explosions. A 32-minute
tirade of raging rock ‘n’ rebellious roll excitation. Songs Of Personal Loss And Protest has enough deliberative firepower to reinvigorate us with the confidence to face and fight
the daily turmoil caused by larger-than-life egos in charge, who derail our lives.
Thanks, Jon.
Singles.
– KNOCK ‘EM OUT –
– ORANGE SLICE BLUES –
11 June 226
Prolific singer-songwriter luminary KRISTIN HERSH, best known for her illustrious band
Throwing Muses and, to a lesser extent, 50 Foot Wave. She’s also pretty productive on
her own.
With SUGAR ON BLACKSTONE she’ll launch her
12th album. Out August 18th. Tracklist here.
It follows last year’s splendid Throwing Muses‘ 11th
full-length Moonlight Concessions. No, no time out
for Hersh.
Along with the news comes 1st single DARK EYED JUNCO.
A romantic, retrospective memory wrapped in a fervid tune.
Hersh: “He was a ‘Dark Eyed Junco’ and I was a light-eyed weirdo. We’d play
basketball until after dark then, when we couldn’t even see the hoop anymore,
so that we didn’t have to go home. After our stepfather moved in,
it wasn’t a home anymore.”
(Me, as an NBA freak, I wonder if Kristin has a fav basket team).
“Dark eyed junco
Light on the wing
Flyin into town, on a cloud
Tryin to make the heart sing”
SOLO TOUR DATES
Waiting in the pipeline
10 June 2026
Band: OPUS KINK (Brighton, UK)
Who: Razor-edged, funked-up, sax-and-trumpet infused
collective fronted by their charismatic voice/songwriter
Angus Rodgers.
Album: THE SWEET GOODBYE
Their debut.
Release date: 31 July
Order info: here
Album artwork
Press-info: Underscored by a formidable horn section and ragged, sardonic delivery,
the band bear passing resemblance to post-punk and no-wave acts like The Pop Group, Birthday Party and Lounge Lizards.
It’s the weaving of older, more traditional influences: choral, folk, country,
Latin, Weimar cabaret, cruise-ship-crooning, into the fabric of their music
that sets them apart.
The album is produced by Grammy award-winning producer and mixer
Craig Silvey (Arcade Fire, Florence and The Machine, Baxter Dury, REM, Kronos
Quartet, Sam Fender).”
Can’t wait to have it on my stereo.
4 singles, thus far.
– I’M A PRETTY SHOW BOY –
– THE HEAD TREE –
Featuring The New Eves
– COME OVER, DO ME WRONG –
– THE SWEET GOODBYE –
9 June 2026
Photo by Jack Coleman
Hip-rap-hop zealots Beastie Boys entered the scene with their
soon-to-be 40-year-old (15 Nov 1986) debut LP Licensed To III
featuring their pyrotechnic chant Fight For Your Right.
In 2012, the band abruptly finished their journey following
the untimely death of co-vocalist and bassist Adam MCA Yauch
due to cancer.
Now 14 years later, as previously reported, co-vocalist/songwriter
MIKE D (né Michael Louis Diamond, 60 years ago in NYC) returns solo.
He’ll share his debut LP THANK YOU on August 28th. More details here.
Album artwork
Mike D: “It’s been so much fun making this music with people I love and I have grown to
really appreciate in our collaboration. And I just hope it’s fun for others and not overly serious, because let’s be real, I’m releasing this music into a very strange and dark and power-fixated world that really devalues art and feelings and compassion and empathy and equality.”
“We so much loved all three of us being in a band with each other for Beastie Boys. When Yauch died, it was an extremely sad time for me so making music was just not on the table. Then being a dad was something I put myself into and eventually I worked on the ‘Beastie Boys Book’ with Adam (‘Ad-Rock’ Horovitz] and that really helped both of us as we were really able to shine a light on our past together.”
Thus far we got 3 prodigious tasters.
– SWITCH UP –
– WHAT WE GOT –
– TRUE COLOURS –
Mike D with his band 5D, including his 2 sons – Photo by Sam Finelli
8 June 2026
Credit Osees
Riff machine OSEES led by barnstormer in shorts John Dwyer dropped,
without foreplay or warning, new music. 5 tracks, 32 minutes, under
the caption OFF COURSE.
Is it an album, is it an EP?
According to Wikipedia and EP contains more tracks than a single but fewer
than an album (8-10). Contemporary EPs usually contain up to eight tracks
and have a playing time of 15 to 30 minutes.
I call it an EP, Osees‘ general calls it an album.
He’s the boss. So an album it is.
Album artwork
Dwyer: “We went back to an older method of writing for this one. We jammed
and jammed and jammed. I took the tapes home and ironed out some mutant
tunes. We went back into the studio and burned them to tape live and then I
took it home and did the vocals. Spice is always nice.
Mixed it all up in the cauldron and thus we have a strange brew indeed Floating in
the smoke we have: A couple long jams, a couple short jams and a finale that’ll dump
a bucket of ear worms on you (reminiscent of “the axis”?) Dip your toe in organ rock
and roll.”
TUTV: Whatever format it is. I played Off Course 5 times in a row. Yes, to my
ears it’s one of the best things Osees did in recent years. No riff mania, but 60/70’s
psych prog rock inspired work-outs, a bit of Deep Purple in their symphonic phase.
Mind-bending and trance-inducing, coming close to the extravagant trips
of that other ultra-productive team King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard,
27 albums in 16 years.
The Trick is my fav track. An instrumental, Krautrock-like, motorik piece
that thrives on organ and hyperkinetic drumming. Flabbergasting. Mind
you, all 32 minutes have a dumbfounding effect.
What a surprisingly surprising surprise.
6 June 2026
Band: THE CLAYPOOL LENNON DELIRIUM
Who: Outlandish duo, composed of bassist/vocalist Les Claypool,
member of Primus, and guitarist/vocalist Sean Ono Lennon.
Album: THE GREAT PARROT-OX AND THE GOLDEN EGG OF EMPATHY
Their 3rd LP. A concept one with a 24-page original comic
book created with longtime collaborator Rich Ragsdale.
Story: “Set in the once-glorious land of Cliptopia, where a sentient A.I. known
as Cliptron and his army of robots are resourcing everything, then turning it all
into Clipnex brand paperclips, the album follows young artist Hippard O. Campus Jr.
as he rebels against his father, Hippard Sr. (owner of the CLIPNEX corporation and
creator of CLIPTRON).
With help from salty sea-dog Colonel O’Coren, Hipp embarks on a fantastical adventure
to stop Cliptron’s cold, chrome heart from converting the world, humans included, into paperclips.”
Hipp’s quest leads across the sea to the Isle of Lucidity, where the all-wise Ministry of Manatees guide him to the Great Parrot-Ox, whose Golden Egg of Empathy is the only
thing that can bring understanding and emotion to Cliptron.
Claypool: “The album was over three years in the making and was the most labor intensive recording I have ever been involved in. The results are something Shiner and I are very proud
of. A relevant concept piece accompanied by a colorful, phantasmic comic book.”
Lennon: “The record is a cautionary tale of what could be in store for humanity if we continue to favor machines over men. It is a tale of a technocracy eclipsed by paperclips; a young man destined to unravel the fabric of his father’s folly, and a sacred feathered Goddess (played by WILLOW), who holds the egg-shaped key to their future.”
TUTV: Lucy in the sky with diamonds? Well, sort of. This unusual pair take you on a trip where they treat you with a mix of 60s dream pop, prog-rock, and rainbow psychedelia. Mind you, it’s an accessible record to go eight miles high to, but it goes a long way, 1 hour and 2 minutes, and the fictional story in play isn’t a simple one to get hold of.
En route, this retro-addicted duo play round elaborated poppy tunes that are dressed
up with yesteryear orchestrations, and plenty of space for Claypool’s bass extravaganza.
After a couple of spins, I’m not sure yet if this is a bad, good, or very good LP (certainly not a delirium one). I know that doesn’t make sense, I suppose. But yes, I’m confused, so I’ll get back to my headphones and see what happens this time.
SINGLE
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