New Album Alert 2024

LINKIN PARK – ‘FROM ZERO’ To Heroes Again On Their Comeback Album

Posted on by JL

16 November 2024


Press photo

In July 2017 devastating news hit the huge fan base of nu-metal rockers
LINKIN PARK when the passing of frontman Chester Bennington was
announced. He committed suicide at the age of 41.

The Californian band released 7 albums between 2000 and 2007 and their
future was in doubt. But a couple of months ago rumours suggested an
unexpected comeback

The rumours were right. LP are back with a new line-up featuring long-time
members Mike Shinoda, Brad Delson, Dave “Phoenix” Farrell, and Joe Hahn,
alongside two newcomers Emily Armstrong of grunge rockers Dead Sara
and drummer Colin Brittain (songwriter, producer for G Flip, Illenium).


New album artwork

And yesterday their new album, baptized FROM ZERO came out.
Yes, they start again from scratch with Emily Armstrong as the new
vocal heroine Emily Armstrong next to Mike Shinoda. The range of
her voice is insane and scrapes the sky on repeat.

Shinoda about the album: “Before Linkin Park, our first band name was Xero. This album title refers to both this humble beginning and the journey we’re currently undertaking. Sonically and emotionally, it is about past, present, and future — embracing our signature sound, but new and full of life. It was made with a deep appreciation for our new and longtime bandmates, our friends, our family, and our fans. We are proud of what Linkin Park has become over the years, and excited about the journey ahead.”

Kerrang‘s verdict: “Sure, not every song is something to write home about, and not everyone is going to be on board with a new singer, but as a piece of work, it’s a clear reminder of why Linkin Park reached the heights they did and continue to influence multiple generations of artists. Welcome back.”

Top tracks: The Emptiness Machine / Over Each Other / Casuality / Stained / IGYeih


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MERCURY REV Enrapture With Their New Album ‘BORN HORSES’ – Poetry In Motion

Posted on by JL

9 September 2024


Album artwork

Day-and-night dreamers MERCURY REV – with key members Jonathan Donahue and
Sean “Grasshopper” Mackowiak – have their 9th LP, their first in 9 years out. It’s named BORN HORSES. The band have cited the late beat poet Robert Creeley as one of the inspirations when creating the album.

Press info: “In upstate New York, deep in the seam between the Catskills mountains and the Hudson Valley, a richly swelling, spellbound sound emerges, eddying and flowing like the local Esopus Creek, or in the slipstream of the grander Hudson river, carrying the flotsam and jetsam of our hopes, dreams, fears.

A sound composed of organic and electronic; guitars, keys, brass, strings, woodwind, drums – and a voice of incantations, tapping streams of consciousness that similarly
eddy and flow.

Spiritually, literally, psycho-geographically: where else does Mercury Rev’s ninth album Born Horses spring from? This cascade of gleaming, glistening psych-jazz- folk-baroque-ambient quest that searches its soul but can never truly know the answer?

A sound and vision linked to their exalted past whilst quite unlike anything they have created before? The answer is somewhere between the homes of founder members Jonathan Donahue (the hamlet of Mt Tremper) and Grasshopper (the town of Kingston), in their veins and brains of their now- legendary tapping of musical cosmology, and the vital presence of new permanent member Marion Genser (keys), plus long- term ally Jesse Chandler (keys) and guests Jeff Lipstein (drums), Martin Keith (double bass) and Jim Burgess (trumpet).”


Press photo by Joe Magistro

Mojo (British musical monthly): “Bands, as Donahue famously sang on Holes,
“never work quite right”, but with this late-period beauty, Mercury Rev have hit
the cosmic balance perfectly.”

TUTV: Reflections about the past, the present and the future. Frontman Jonathan
Donahue tells stories about life. Real images, illusionary images. His heartwarming
voice and the subtly jazzy, soothing and tranquilizing orchestrations flow into each
other just beautifully.

Poetry in motion. Born Horses is an ideal companion for meditative nights, for silent
moments of nostalgic pensiveness and widescreen fantasies. After a couple of spins,
I played Laurie Anderson‘ new album Amelia (about the legendary female aviator Amelia). Other stories but a same telling atmosphere and impact, same cinematic sonority. Then back again to Born Horses. A spiritual experience. Dim the light, sit down, relax and let
your thoughts flow.

SINGLE

STREAM ALBUM


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BUY ALBUM


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MR: Instagram

LAURIE ANDERSON Released Her 9th LP – A Cinematic Tribute To The Legendary American Aviator ‘AMELIA’

Posted on by JL

New longplayers

3 September 2024

Avant-garde artist and Lou Reed’s widow LAURIE ANDERSON
just launched her 9th LP, her first in 6 years. It’s titled AMELIA.

Order info here.


Album artwork

The new album is centered around female pioneering aviator
Amelia Earhart (1897-1937) who was the first woman to cross
the Atlantic Ocean. She went missing after a fatal flight in 1937.

Anderson: “The words used in Amelia are inspired by her pilot diaries, the telegrams
she wrote to her husband, and my idea of what a woman flying around the world might
think about. Helping bring her musical vision to life are Czech orchestra Filharmonie Brno
with conductor Dennis Russell Davies, Anohni, Gabriel Cabezas, Rob Moose, Ryan Kelly,
Martha Mooke, Marc Ribot, Tony Scherr, Nadia Sirota, and Kenny Wolleson.”

Spin says: “On Amelia, Anderson resurrects this courageous woman and gives her breath, heart, and soul. It is impossible to hear this aerial ballet and walk away unaffected.”

TUTV: This is not an ordinary album structurally, sonically nor vocally. This record is the soundtrack to an Amelia documentary yet to be made. Anderson tells (short) stories about Amalia‘s adventures, only on the 3 songs featuring endearing voice Anohni and one other track there’s some singing. The album is a 34-minute symphony honoring a legendary aviator. Captivating experience it is. Give it a couple of spins and enjoy the flight, it’s an awesome one.


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LA: Instagram

THE SMASHING PUMPKINS – New Album ‘AGHORI MOHRI MEI’ Online Now – Familiar Territory

Posted on by JL

2 August 2024


New album artwork

Spread over two years, 2022-2023, THE SMASHING PUMKINGS,
fronted by general Billy Corgan released Atum: A Rock Opera
In Three Acts last year.

And general Billy Corgan‘s productive juices keep on flowing. The result is already
another new longplayer. Today they dropped AGHORI MHORI MEI on the internet,
only three weeks after its release announcement. No singles to warm up, the full
shebang – 10 songs – in one go.


Press photo

Physical copies of the LP will be released in the future on exclusive edition
Vinyl through frontman Billy Corgan‘s Chicago tea room Madade ZuZu’s.

Billy Corgan about AMM: “In the writing of this new album I became intrigued with the well-worn axiom, “you can’t go home again.” Which I have found personally to be true in form but thought well, what if we tried anyway? Not so much in looking backwards with sentimentality but rather as a means to move forward; to see if in the balance of success and failure that our ways of making music circa 1990-1996 would still inspire something revelatory.”

TUTV: To my ears, AMM resonates (so far, just had a couple of spins at this very
moment), like Atum Part IV. Vintage Smashing Pumpkins bombast featuring familiar sounding wall-of-guitar haymakers such as Edin, Pentagrams, War Dreams Of Itself and Sicarus, some high-voltage, mid-tempo jackhammers (999 / Sighomni), and a couple of amplified ballads, Pentecost, Who Goes There, Goeth The Fall and my favorite one,
closer Murnau.

Nothing awful, nothing supreme. Familiar territory.

Corgan cites ‘Siamese Dream’ and ‘Mellon Collie’ as references, although I’m sure
he knows that he will never get back to that outstanding, monumental level any
more.

STREAM


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Pumpkins: Instagram

Hard Rock Giants DEEP PURPLE Have Album #23 Out – Only For Diehard Fans

Posted on by JL

20 July 2024

British imperishable hard rockers DEEP PURPLE (1967–1976, 1984–present)
have no intention to retire. Their, brand-new, 23rd longplayer, weirdly named
=1 out now.

TUTV: #1 sounds like early DP album from the 60s/70s.

Yep, no surprises, it’s all vintage Purple with instantly recognizable screeching guitar
solos, recognizable organs, recognizable Ian Paice vocals (mind you, he still has a far
reaching and firm voice) recognizable stompers for fanatic headbangers, recognizable bombast and melodrama.

BUT not one tune comes in the neighbourhood of Smoke On The Water, Child In Time or Woman From Tokyo, not even close. If you sound the same for 58 years you still can stand out when you fabricate resistless, magnetic and ear-exciting TUNES with titanic choruses. Sadly this is not the case here. =1 is only for diehard fans.

SINGLE

ALBUM

Instagram – All Albums

EMINƎM – Dreary Goodbye To His Iconic Alter Ego With New Album ‘THE DEATH OF SLIM SHADY (COUP DE GRÂCE)’

Posted on by JL

18 July 2024

Non-stop machine-gun wordsmith Marshall Bruce Mathers aka EMINEM
has his 10th LP, called THE DEATH OF SLIM SHADY (Coup De Grâce) out.

Pitchfork says: Mostly, The Death of Slim Shady just feels sad. No matter how self-aware he is about becoming the old white guy scared of a changing culture, Eminem can’t seem to get in front of that fact. He was so provocative on his first few albums not because of his lyrics—plenty of horrorcore and gangster rap records were just as gnarly—but because he anticipated the criticism his lyrics would inspire. He set up the hall of mirrors and led you right into it… But now he’s stuck between contradictions; he claims to be above Slim Shady’s acidity but included that song anyway. If Slim Shady’s a mirror, as he asserts in “Guilty Conscience 2,” Marshall Mathers still can’t smash it. All the shards show the same reflection.” Score: 4.8/10.

TUTV: First things first. I’m not a hip-hop-rap fanatic, but one of the genre’s artists I really got/get thrilled by is EMINƎM. His 2002 album The Eminem Show was and still is a stroke of genius in my book. The way he embedded his manic rap rants into sickly sticky melodies was/is genial, but the new album is a stinker.

I feel sorry and happy for Slim Shady aka Eminem aka Marshall Bruce Mathers III. The guy had to endure a lot since he showed up for the first time in 1999 on his 2nd LP. And now, good for him, he gets the coup de grâce. Over and out (although you never know with E). He deserved a more fitting funeral than one with a farewell speech of 64 mediocre minutes, unworthy of the Detroit giant.

Slim here, Slim there, Slim everywhere, shoot Slim, hit Slim, tons of macho Slim rhymes etc. Musically we get only a handful of tunes that make me turn up the volume (tongue-in-cheek single Houdini, Habits, Brand New Dance, Evil, Antichrist, Guilty Conscience 2). Spread over those 64 minutes you need to skip over and over again, yet the master himself says you have to listen from start to finish to get the full story. Full story? Slim is dead, and that’s it. End of story.

The best lines are the first ones of Houdini. LOL!

“Hey, Em, it’s Paul (Paul Rosenberg = E’s associate)
Uh, I was listening to the album
Good fucking luck, you’re on your own”

SINGLE

ALBUM


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E: All Albums – Instagram

FRANK ZAPPA & THE MOTHERS OF INVENTION – ‘LIFE AT THE WHISKY A GO GO 1968’ Out Now

Posted on by JL

26 June 2024

Experimental prog-jazz-rock luminary and improvisation wizard FRANK ZAPPA
(1940-1993) and his MOTHERS OF INVENTION turned traditional guitar rock
upside down from the mid-60s on.

They released countless studio albums, and several live LPs, although Zappa
used to say about the live ones: “It’s pretty hard to record what we do because
it gets so loud and ugly.”

Another concert album from the archives is now available. It’s the registration
of their 3-set concert at the legendary L.A. nightclub Whisky A Go Go in 1968.
It’s spread over 5LPs/3 CDs including some collector’s stuff. Order info here.

Press info: “On July 23, 1968, Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention took over the Whisky a Go Go for an all-night affair. The entire evening was recorded with the possibility of an album project. Although bits and pieces were released by Zappa over the years, a full live album never happened, and the tapes sat in the Vault for 55 years. Now all three sets by The Mothers are being released with brand new 2023 mixes on 3-CD, 5LP and a 2-LP Highlights edition with liner notes by Joe Travers, Pamela Des Barres (The GTO’s), and an interview between Alice Cooper and Ahmet Zappa.

It’s a historic document that shows the geniality of his orchestrated cacophony on stage,
switching all sort of genres from left to right and coming up with freakish improvisations. There’s also a lot of his legendary comical chatter in between songs too. A must-have for Zappa addicts.

STREAM HERE


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Frank Zappa: Website – Instagram

ED HARCOURT Displays His Singer-Songwriting Expertise On New 10th Longplayer ‘EL MAGNIFICO’

Posted on by JL

31 March 2024

Renowned British songsmith ED HARCOURT (born Edward Henry Richard Harcourt-Smith
in London, 46 years ago). Has his new, 10th longplayer out.

Harcourt: “I think as a songwriter you do get to a point where you’re aware of your past and what you’ve done. It’s knowing what your strengths are, what your weaknesses are, but also knowing how to better yourself by doing things you haven’t done before.”

“I find that I’m always learning. When I’m writing with someone else it’s always a total blank canvas so you have to be open to trying new things. It means with every record I do myself it’s got to have something different in it. Every album is always a reaction to the last thing I did. After the Furnaces, which was quite heavy and experimental, I felt it was time I went back to
the source a bit. So maybe there is a sense here of drawing on what people perhaps know
me for, but there is also a big step forward.”

TUTV: Harcourt is one of those seasoned, traditional singer-songwriters/crooners
who create riveting compositions that enamour heart and soul. Songs about all things human. Love, despair, hope, sadness, the whole emotional spectrum of us, mortals.

His piano is still his best friend and shows up in every tune, embedded in grand
orchestral symphonies and emotive ballads. His impassioned, melodramatic voice
is, as usual, one of the main instruments on this record. Music for the midnight hours. Affecting accomplishment.

Highlights: The duet-vocals on Broken Keys featuring Afghan Whigs‘ Greg Dulli, In The Loving Arms Of Your Enemy, Strange Beauty, The Violence Of The Rose, Anvils & Hammers and My Heart Can’t Keep Up With My Mind.

ALBUM


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EH: Instagram –

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