Album Of The Week

ANIKA – Wayward Songstress Fights Her Mind-Threathing Demons On New Stupefying Album ‘ABYSS’

Posted on by JL

15 April 2025


Press

Artist: ANIKA
Who: British, Berlin-based songstress. She released two splendid
albums with indie band Exploded View and has her 4th solo one
out now.

Album: ABYSS

Press info: “Anika channels her frustration, anger, and confusion with the world.
The album captures raw energy with minimal overdubs, resulting in a visceral and
urgent 10-track journey fueled by intense emotions.

Abyss reflects Anika’s desire to create a space where people can unite and feel free to express themselves amidst the chaos of the world. With influences ranging from 90s grunge and Courtney Love to Patti Smith and Genesis P-Orridge, the album is driven by
a rebellious spirit.


Album artwork

AllMusic says: “Anika may be known for her aloof persona, but emotion has always been a vital part of her music — and never more so than on Abyss. She brings just enough range to Abyss to avoid monotony, letting the personal bleed into the political… Confrontational in ways quiet and loud, Abyss is a testament to Anika’s fierce artistic independence and gift for haunting moods. Full review here.

TUTV: Abyss is sonically, her most heavy-laden longplayer. From revved-up pop crazing (Hearsay / Honey / Last Song) to psych rock shocks (Abyss / Oxygen / Out Of The Shadows).
It’s Anika Vs Anika and the outside world as she makes clear in Walk Away with the lines “The truth is, I don’t really like myself / And the truth is / I don’t really like anyone else.”

Anika still struggles with all kind of demons (media moguls, a broken relationship, being trapped in your own narrative, patriarchy, toxic masculinity and other mind-destroying dangers). Eventually she’s at her best when she faces and fights her worst nightmares and she knows she’s not alone. We’re all in it together. We should try not to hate each other and be tolerant for a chance. L’union fait la force. 2025 is Anika‘s year.

SINGLES: Hearsay / Walk Away

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EURO/UK TOUR

CANADA/US TOUR

Instagram – Linktree

CANYONS AND LOCUSTS – Boston’s Two-Motor Diesel Kick Ass On New Pyrotechnic Album ‘THE GOAL GIGOLO’

Posted on by JL

24 February 2025

Band: CANYONS AND LOCUSTS
Who: Two-piece act, Justin Keane (vocals, guitar) and Amy Young (drums, backing vocals), from Boston, MA. Fueled by the current chaos of the world and an urgent need to be part of the conversation, the two took the indie rock foundation they built in previous bands and upped the ante by adding new levels of noise via pervasive, edgy guitar sounds, low and thundery drumbeats, and emotional vocals.

Album: THE GOAL GIGOLO

Press info: The record draws together several storytelling narrators underneath the
duo’s unhinged wall of fuzzed-out rock and roll. Each of Canyons and Locusts’ 10 songs
in The Goal Gigolo, tabbed by WBUR, Boston’s NPR, as one of the most-anticipated New England records of the winter, point to the album’s storyline as a north star, developing
a narrative path forward as the eponymous anti-hero comes to life in cinematic ways.
It’s not exactly linear storytelling, but it’s no less gripping.

Keane: “Broadly speaking, The Goal Gigolo is the story of a guy who makes his living solving others’ emotional problems while trying not to get entangled with them romantically. It’s set
in the 1970s, so I guess we weren’t calling those people life coaches yet.”

TUTV: C&L hit harder and rougher than The White Stripes (Motorwall Oil / Anna Save A Life / Detain The Piano Man) in their early days. At times the DIY tandem turn up the roasting heat as if they want to kick Dinosaur Jr‘s ass (Trapped In The Trigger / Moriarty The Serpents / It’s A Long Goodbye) and they make your limbs twist around with a salvo of AC/DC riffs.

No fancy production nor redundant studio tricks for Keane/Young. They’re for real and leave all their sweat on the floor to make their loud and clear mark. Jello Biafra should
take this two-motor diesel on his label. Now.

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Instagram – Linktree

AVALANCHE PARTY – English Hit Team Produce Non-Stop Fireworks On Their New Startling Album ‘DER TRAUM UBER ALLES’

Posted on by JL

10 February 2025

Band: AVALANCHE PARTY
Who: High-voltage outfit from Yorkshire Moors (UK),
formed by Joe and Jordan Bell, vocalist and bassist
respectively.

Album: DER TRAUM UBER ALLES
Their second one.
Order info: here

Press info: “The band’s 2019 debut LP ‘24 Carat Diamond Trephine’ spurts forth a
spectrum of styles, leaping from frenetic garage-psych to sedate surrealistic Americana to staccato uplifting indie rock over the course of its thirty-nine minutes. New album ‘Der Traum Über Alles’, is compared to their debut a more considered, full-formed beast, its dark underbelly undoubtedly a result of it being conceived during and after the caged-animal isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic.

For all its urgency, the making of the LP required near-superhuman patience from the band. Recorded in November 2022 with Dave Catching (Queens of the Stone Age, Eagles of Death Metal) at Rancho de la Luna – his beautifully eccentric home studio on the edge of Joshua Tree National Park, California – Avalanche Party were set to be there two years before, but had to wait for the US border to reopen after repeated lockdowns Stateside.

Swapping subterranean Teesside for this magical, hazardous desert landscape populated
with rattlesnakes, scorpions and cholla cacti, the band recorded ‘Der Traum Über Alles’ in just ten days. The idiosyncrasies of malfunctioning equipment were embraced as the band blazed through the songs, Catching’s laidback mastery of his own beaten-up equipment ensuring each track felt like a spontaneous eruption after so many months of suspended animation.”

TUTV: Warning. If your physical condition is only so-so, hurry up to the gym and work out for a week, if not you won’t be able to catch up with this mean funk and punk, buzz and fuzz, move and groove machine record.

Your ears will go berserk non-stop, as AP shoot a series of titanic tunes from their hips (John Coltrane’s Moscow Skyscraper / Nureyev Said It / No Neutral / Serious Dance Music / Target and my standout fav belters Shake The Slack and Ecstasy). Even when they slow down just a tiny bit like on Slinky and Chainz your limbs still can’t relax (as if you want
to do that, anyway).

Avalanche Party have become masterly songwriters who know exactly how to construct adrenalized knockout killers with the right combination of roasting riffs, jagged hooks, bang-on licks, powerhouse drumming, effervescent synths and sultry horns here and there.

You’ll hear echoes of Scottish celebs Franz Ferdinand, English post-punks Squid and
rowdy rockers Young knives but all 3 references’ new album can’t match the fireworks extravaganza of Der Traum Uber Alles.

Album of the week, not only this one, but many weeks to come.

Singles: John Coltrane’s Moscow Skyscraper / Shake The Slack /
Nureyev Said It Best / Collateral Damage

– JOHN COLTRANE’S MOSCOW SKYSCRAPER –

– SHAKE THE SLACK –

– NUREYEV SAID IT BEST –

– SERIOUS DANCE MUSIC –

– COLLATERAL DAMAGE –

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TOUR DATES 2025

Instagram – Linktree

LAMBRINI GIRLS Launched Debut Album ‘WHO LET THE DOGS OUT’ – Faster Than A Formula 1 Ferrari, Louder Than A Supersonic Jet

Posted on by JL

11 January 2025


Album artwork

Band: LAMBRINI GIRLS
Who: Two razorblade riot girrrrlzz – vox/guitarist Phoebe Lunny
and bassist Lilly Macieira – from Brighton (UK) with an insatiable
appetite for mass moshpits.

Album: WHO LET THE DOGS OUT
Their debut longplayer. Buy here.


Photo by Turn Up The Volume – Lille, France – 24 February 2024

Press info: “The album rips through a laundry list of social ills. Sirens blare over a heavy distorted bass and a live drum breakbeat. The band dance between upbeat poppunk, dirty grunge tones and discordant post-punk. There’s even some noise-popcheer for putting yourself first, whether it’s having an autistic meltdown or doing apoo at your mate’s house.

With instrumentals that inhale you like a Level 5 tornado and sentiments that make you want to kick the nearest door through, it’s a take-no-prisoners debut from one of the UK’s most fun and fearless bands.”

The English press is going fully nuts over the record, resulting in an
overall 87/100 score, for 13 reviews. Check them out on Metacritic.

TUTV’s EARS REPORT:

Faster than a Formula One Ferrari.
Louder than a supersonic jet.
Punkier than any punks around.

Trashing. Crashing. Slashing.
Hellish. Demonic. Manicial.

Deeper-cutting than a Swiss knife.
More lethal than a rattling riot-gun.

11 knockouts. 11 killers. 11 hits.
11 Molotov cocktails. 11 bulls-eyes.

Bitchy. Boiling. Blasting.
Chaotic. Mental. Queer.
Bonkers. Berserk. Banging.

Massive bass buzz.
Schizo guitar riffs.
Octopus drumming.
Exorcistic screams.
Cuntological rages.

100 sneers. 100 spits.
100 rants. 100 bursts.
100 shits. 100 fuck-offs.

Middle-finger to all LGBTQ-haters.
To hell with all greedy capitalists.
Kick Brex-shit in the nationalistic ass.

Singles (shared so far): Love / Big Dick Energy / Company Culture

– LOVE –

– BIG DICK ENERGY –

– COMPANY CULTURE –

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EU/UK

US 2025

Instagram – Website

KIM DEAL Charms With Her Riveting Solo Debut Album ‘NOBODY LOVES YOU MORE’

Posted on by JL

23 November 2024


New album artwork

KIM DEAL is best known as the utterly cool bass player of indie
icons Pixies and from her own band The Breeders, featuring
her twin sister Kelley.

In the past she wrote/shared some of her self-made songs but without any real
attention from the outside. That’ll change, now that Deal has launched her debut
solo album NOBODY LOVES YOU MORE.

Press info: “Nobody Loves You More is Kim Deal’s debut album although it’s not the first
time she has gone solo. She self-released a five-part, ten-song seven-inch vinyl series in 2013.
In keeping with Deal’s meticulous approach to her art, the album was refined over several years. Its oldest songs, ‘Are You Mine?’ and ‘Wish I Was’, were written and originally recorded
in 2011 shortly after Deal came off the Pixies’ “Lost Cities Tour” and relocated to Los Angeles (early versions of those songs were included in said vinyl series).

The last recording for Nobody Loves You More took place in November 2022 with legendary engineer and close friend Steve Albini, who helmed final track ‘A Good Time Pushed’ at his Electrical Audio studio in Chicago. Along the way she has brought in a variety of collaborators from Breeders past and present (Mando Lopez, twin sister Kelley Deal, Jim Macpherson, Britt Walford), to Raymond McGinley (Teenage Fanclub), Jack Lawrence (Raconteurs) and Savages’ Fay Milton and Ayse Hassan.”


Credit: Kristin Sollecito

MOJO (British music monthly): “Nobody Loves You More is a singularly uplifting, life-affirming listen, where joy and despair, love and loss, are irrevocably entwined, and kept afloat by Deal’s unfailing lightness of touch.” Score: 10/10.

TUTV: Kim Deal on her own, expresses mixed emotions about past and present
personal experiences on this record. Mostly with meditative, moony, and subtly orchestrated reveries such as the title track, Coast, Are You Mine?, Wish I Was and Summerland. All charming songs for a quiet winter night in.

Deal‘s slightly hoarse voice is instrumental. Its tender-hearted aura creates a relaxing ambiance, interrupted now and then by more uptempo, upbeat tracks like stand-out
vibe Crystal Breath, the vigorous guitar-frisky Disobediece and the buzzing Big Ben Beat
jam. The critics jubilate euphorically, a bit too much for my aural liking. Mind you, Nobody
Loves You More is a riveting record, but not an overwhelming triumph as stated by many.

KEY SINGLE

ALBUM


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KD: Linktree

THE CURE Have Their Heart-And-Soul Stirring ‘SONGS FROM A LOST WORLD’ Out – Contender For Album Of The Year

Posted on by JL

4 November 2024

Goth Gods THE CURE launched their 14th album,
their first in 16 years, titled Songs Of A Lost World.

Maestro Robert Smith about the new record.

NME says: “Robert Smith and co’s first full album in 16 years deals in darkness and death,
but with flowers on the grave. ‘Songs Of A Lost World’ feels sufficient enough for the wait we’ve endured, just for being arguably the most personal album of Smith’s career. Mortality may loom, but there’s colour in the black and flowers on the grave.” Full review here. Score: 5/5.

TUTV: In the past 16 years Robert Smith lost his mother, father, and brother. All the painful experiences surrounding these impactful, indelible passings led to this brilliant, gloomy record. One long emotionally layered lament, one that seems to work liberating in the end.

Strong sentiments of heartache, grief, and sadness are omnipresent, but you hear and
feel frequently that Smith has accepted humankind’s inevitable destiny. Live and die. “There’s nothing you can do to change the end‘ he sings on ‘A Fragile Thing‘.

Sonically, it resonates as if you’re part of a funeral march that progresses in slow
motion, just the way the music evolves. Every song starts with a long instrumental
intro of waves of melancholic synths and weeping guitars, and every time when Smith‘s feverish voice joins in, the intensity augments wondrously captivating. Only on two tracks Drone:Nodorne and All I Ever Am the pace goes up a bit, but they have the same overall orchestral somber sonority of the full album.

The most drastically soul-stirring record I heard all year, accentuating how sorrow
can overwhelm and hurt one’s heart and mind. It’s a universal experience that millions, and millions of people who lost loved ones – past, present and future – can relate to.

I played Songs Of A Lost World at least 5 times for
4 consecutive days now, always in full, always. I didn’t
do that with any album this year. I can’t see who will top
this sublime opus in the coming 2 last months of 2024.

SINGLES: Alone / A Fragile Thing

ALBUM


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Instagram – All The Cure Albums

New 135-Track Benefit Comp Raises Funds For Hurricane Drama In WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA – Many Big Names And Previously Unreleased Songs

Posted on by JL

10 October 2024

Following the deadly destruction by Hurricane Helene in Western North Carolina
many initiatives are set up to help raise funds for organizations doing relief work
at the affected areas.

One of those initiatives is a brand-new music compilation, titled CARDINALs AT THE WINDOW . It counts no less than 135 tracks, including previously unreleased and live ones, from a lot of big names such as R.E.M., The War On Drugs, Jeff Tweedy, Angel Olsen, Sharon Van Etten, Phish, Hotline TNT, Waxahatchee, Feist, Fleet Foxes, Indigo De Souza, The Hold Steady, Archers Of Loaf, Iron & Wine, The Avett Brothers, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, The Mountain Goats, Jason Isbell, Real Estate, and
many, many more.

You can buy/download the full compilation via Bandcamp for 10$ or more. Proceeds go to Rural Organizing and Resilience, BeLoved Asheville, and the Community Foundation of Western North Carolina.

Full Tracklist HERE
Buy Album (digitally) HERE

Libby Rodenbough (community organizer and musician): “There were just so many folks who, like us, had witnessed the destruction of these holy places from the outside and felt their hearts trying to break out of their chests. It was instant, the way people signed on. They also feel what I feel, that these mountains are the cradle of some deep and ineffable magic.”

HINDS – Peppy Spanish Fury Score One Of The Best Pop LPs Of The Year With Their 4th One ‘VIVA HINDS’

Posted on by JL

7 September 2024


Press photo by Dario Vazquez

Peppy Spanish power pop Amazons HINDS
unleashed their 4th LP, baptized Viva Hinds.

The band is now reduced to two members. So, only
2 hinds left. But it’s definitely their best music ever.

Press info: Spanish indie rockers Hinds are back with their utterly triumphant
fourth album, Viva Hinds. Written by the band’s co-founders, co-vocalists, co-guitarists
and co-songwriters Carlotta Cosials and Ana Perrote, it features their first-ever fully Spanish language songs, as well as first collaborations with the likes of Beck and Fontaines D.C.’s frontman Grian Chatten.

Uncut (British music monthly): “The fourth album is a
masterclass in simple but devastatingly effective melodies.”


New album cover

TUTV: Infectious tune after infectious tune make you reach for Piña Colada after
Piña Colada. Hinds resurrect here from a difficult period with 2 members leaving.
It leads to songs of love and loss, yep, songs about life.

The overall vitalizing formula of this new longplayer lies in the fact that every single track
is embedded in an on-the-spot galvanizing melodiousness that triggers joyous, gratified and devil-may-care feelings. It’s called pop-ular music. No less, no more. Oh so welcome
in these disordered times. Uplifting entertainment for all seasons. Gracias ciervas.
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KEY SINGLE
Contender for best one of 2024

ALBUM


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Hinds: Instagram

RADAR MEN FROM THE MOON – Dutch Industrial Post-Punk Act Fascinate With Götterdämmerung Album ‘VOMITORIUM’

Posted on by JL

20 August 2024

Band: RADAR MEN FROM THE MOON
Who: Noise-exploring post-punk indies from Eindhoven,
The Netherlands. Their name was taken from a 1952 Sci-Fi series.

Album: VOMITORIUM,
Their 7th one.

Press info: “It’s an eight-track collection of abrasive experimental punk
that unleashes their latest line-up and musical incarnation in typically confrontational form. Revelling in cathartic excess and a bludgeoning intensity, they power through 90s industrial electronics, discordant noise-rock and the darkest post-punk extremes.”

TUTV: Expect bone-chilling and creepy primal screams accompanied by a hellish pandemonium resonance, coming out of a pitch-black darkness. It’s 1984 all over again. Doom and gloom everywhere. The world is on its way to self-destruction. Industrial NIN-like orchestrations in scary slo-mo design the ominous signs of the times here.

War, intolerance, dictatorial world leaders. Vomitorium is about our grim reality that looks surreal. Eight unbridled, barbed wire jams is what we get, hear and suck up. Schizophrenic guitars, merciless percussion and excorcistic vocals dominate this fascinating record.

It’s not really beach party music but rather the soundtrack for a
graveyard gathering. Götterdämmerung is just around the corner.

KEY SINGLE

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RMFTM: Instagram

KING GIZZARD & THE LIZARD WIZARD – Aussies Rock Out On Elevating New Album ‘FLIGHT b741’

Posted on by JL

12 August 2024

Psych-prog-rock Aussies KING GIZZARD & THE LIZARD WIZARD
dropped their 26th album in 14 years, baptized FLIGHT b741.

The Guardian (British newspaper): “A cheerfully rocking album about global collapse… Flight b741 is a striking combination of form and emotion from a band where the former has often been scrutinised by critics at the expense of the latter. Flight b741 charts a bumpy path, but the destination makes it worth it.” Score: 4/5.


Photo by Maclay Heriot

TUTV: After 25 albums, it sounds as if the prolific Aussies decided to simply rock out
for a change, and they do it with striking 70s-inspired strokes with sultry harmonica-blues echoes here and there. Conventional guitar solos pop up in every track.

Zestful and highly vibrant melodies are embedded in rip-roaring scores going airborne now and then, and peppered with ardent vocality all the way. This KG&TLW opus will
excite my ears for quite a while.

Key tracks: Field Of Vision / Le Risque / Rats In The Sky / Daily Blues

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KG&TLW: Instagram