Last week QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE broke the news about their new, 8th full-length,
baptized Perfecth (not a typo), with a bloody trailer, showing chief queen Josh Homme and keyboardist/guitarist Dean Fertita playing five-finger fillet. The record will land on October 30th.
Following the superb lead single Easy Street we get the 2nd preview track,
called INSIGNIFICANT OTHER. A slow-moving torch song, impassioned with
full-hearted Homme vocals.
Band: GARBAGEBARBIE Who: 4-piece that has carved a space for themselves in Los Angeles’ DIY scene, gaining a reputation for hosting rowdy and oftentimes free, themed shows. Combining elements of Britpop, glam, punk, French disco, and garage rock, garbagebarbie’s confrontational racket refuses to be confined by genre.
Dan Karasev (drummer): “The song holds up a mirror to ourselves. It pokes fun at the LA bar scene which even though we can make fun of, it doesn’t change the fact that we are still in that scene. “
Single artwork
TUTV: Prepare your eardrums for a punked-up motherrocker, a savage haymaker,
a sped-up barnstormer. The unyielding harshness increases with every second and
every time the clamorous chorus kicks in, it’s all hands on deck.
Band: TRÄŠHBAG Who: Hefty Irish duo from Dublin (where everyone seems to in a band lately).
They spent time playing in numerous bands together or standing in for each
other in various bands. They produce a volatile blend of visceral punk rock
and post-punk.
TUTV: OMG! These two nice-looking guys aren’t that nice on record.
They smash, clash and trash with their white van. All hell breaks loose from the outset.
This noxious sledgehammer does your poor head in with non-stop industrial-punk slams.
Wham bloody wham bam! Throw some agitated vocals in the mix and
the volcanic eruption is complete. By far, best debut single of June.
Peter Zaremba (frontman): “It’s about ‘wet-blankets’ in situations
where people should be enjoying life. Basically a positive message
behind the snarky tone. Have some fun. And Goa was great.”
TUTV: Expect a sassy slice of heavy-duty knock-out rock ‘n’ garage roll.
These vivid vets still know all the revved-up tricks to set your speakers
on fire.
Band: TV PINS Who: Indie five-piece based across London and the West Midlands.
They blend prog-pop, new wave, and Americana influences with a
distinctly British alt-rock songwriting sensibility – pairing 70s-inspired
vocal harmonies with a sharp, 90s-influenced energy.
They released their debut album Aircutter in 2024.
Track: VERSION OF LOVE
Cut from their forthcoming
self-released EP.
Grace Hinks (LGBTQ+ vocalist): “To me, it’s about accepting and standing up to
those who don’t embrace all forms of love – romantic, aromantic, and especially
queer joy. It’s about celebrating that openly.”
TUTV: Version Of Love is a perky pop pearl that promptly activates your dance-hungry
body. A sparkling guitar riff, summery vibes, warm-hearted melodiousness, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed vocals, and an infectious tunefulness come together to soundtrack an
all-inclusive love gathering.
John Lennon was right all along ‘All You Need Is Love’.
This way for cloud-nine, people, next to that vibrant
rainbow.
Band: BRICKHOUSE Who: Fresh hit team from Manchester that evokes the uncompromising static
of The Jesus and Mary Chain and the measured rebellion of The Velvet Underground.
Sharp (vocalist/guitarist/songwriter): “Angel Eyes is, at its core, about being haunted.
Not in the supernatural sense, but rather the persistent melancholy. The lingering of
memories after losing a lover and being unsure as to how to help yourself let go and
be released from the curse of seeing someone in everybody else you meet.”
TUTV: Welcome to Brickhouse‘s remarkable debut belter. Angel Eyes is a psych-infused steamroller, going back-and-forth, motorized by alarming guitars, a pounding beat, jittery vocals, and a trenchant chorus that keeps coming back to haunt you with force – think The Velvet Underground ripper ‘Run Run Run‘, but slower.
“‘Go Out’ is essentially from the perspective of an anti-social individual in
a relationship with a social butterfly. Basically, the older we get the more we
enjoy staying home and we’re tired of apologizing for it.”
TUTV: Full of vim and vigour guitar pop at its riveting best. Big intro, big sound, big melody, very big chorus. Got up this morning with the wrong leg? Put this enlivening tune on your headphones (on repeat), go out and embrace the day.
Track: SEEING IN THE DARK
2nd single from their debut album, named Electric Pleasure, out October 30.
“Originally inspired by a dream melody that arrived complete with the phrase “We The Ugly People,” recalling the classic Leonard Cohen line, “we are ugly but we have the music” as well as Pulp’s “Common People,” the chorus lyric drew from this sly sense of solidarity.
Drawing influence from the spiritual yearning and melodic immediacy of classic mid-’70s power pop, particularly Dwight Twilley Band’s “Looking for the Magic,” “Seeing In The Dark” emerged as a celebration of collective connection and shared resilience.”
TUTV: From the kick-off, with its thudding drum/bass beat intro, your eager ears know that Seeing In The Dark is a vivacious and vigorous guitar pop feat. Brisk duet vocals intensify the kicky vibe. A sonic trill for common people like you and me.
TUTV: Full blast forward from square one. It Gets Worse fires on all riff-charging cylinders. Vivid vocals lead the compulsive troops who’re bucked up by about a hundred guitars and a choleric drummer.
Think Blink-182 fronted by supercool rock chick Avril Lavigne. And when the
terrifically catchy chorus comes on like a comet without brakes, it’s all getting
better.
TUTV: Courtney Love is back with her band Hole. Well, not really, but
there’s definitely a sonic and attitude connection with this roasting Irish
engine. Constance rocks you off your socks in just under 3 minutes.
They race with high-voltage speed from the blitz start on, gas-powered by furious
guitars, a raving mad drummer and Chelsea Andrews‘s spiteful vocals. WTF! Fasten
your seatbelts. Gush turns you upside down with this torrid turbocharger.
“Now is all we have. The present is slipping away, the
future isn’t guaranteed, so what are we waiting for?”
TUTV: Expect a brisklt paced and jangly earworm electrified by a flood of jangly riffs, with melancholic vocals floating all over it. Think The Drums and Tame Impala teaming up in the studio together. No brakes, no breaks. We all know we live in chaotic, bodeful times, so
I propose we play this bracing gem on repeat and extend the careless, summer feel.
Homme: “It’s kind of a funny song. It’s like hitting your funny bone, where it’s funny because
it hurts and it hurts because it’s funny. You’re serious, but it’s funny. We made it the way you’d make a demo. No click track, mistakes left in. It speeds up, it slows down, the claps aren’t great, but they’re not bad, and a bad clap adds this human thing you can’t fake.”
TUTV: Certainly another kind of feel-good summer hit than the one from 2000. No bragging about taking a ton of drugs here. No macho riffs. No astronomic power speed. Easy Street is an acoustic pop nugget. Infectiously melodic, spiced with duet vocals here and there. Let the freaks and the birds sing.
Band: ELEPHANT STONE Who: Acclaimed psych outfit fronted by Rishi Dhir, a songwriter and sitarist who
has spent twenty years blurring the lines between Western psych-pop and Indian
classical.
Track: I GOT A PILL
Single from the band’s new upcoming LP, baptized Asha.
It’ll come our way on August 26th.
Album cover
TUTV: Weird intro, weird end. But in between we get an organ-flavoured and lively guitar psych-pop gem. An energizing and hopped-up foot stomper. Elephant Stone know, for a long time, how to groove and move exhaustively, how to please your aural appetite for galvanizing gems. Take this pill three times per day and shake your booty.
“The song introduces us to a possibly unreliable narrator who is nearing the end of the road and is saying goodbye. The song was recorded live at Black Mountain Studios in Co. Louth and captures the energy of the band’s live performances.”
TUTV: Eels have a new album out soon. This is one of the instantly recognisable tracks. Well, it easily could be. Carry On Without Me‘s funky flow, lazy vocals, relaxing ambiance, breezy sparkling guitar glow and perky duet vocals on the contagious chorus lift this song
to E’s magnetic level.
Band: THE DURUTTI COLUMN Who: Post-punk project of Manchester-born, experimental singer-songwriter-guitarist Vincent Gerard “Vini” Reilly (now 72). The band’s name refers to the Durruti Column,
an anarchist military unit in the Spanish Civil War, named after Buenaventura Durruti.
Track: SCAMMER
New piece from their upcoming 28th full-length,
called Renascent, out on July 31st. Order infohere.
TUTV:Reilly‘s vulnerable voice carries this both melancholic and spellbinding musing designed with warm background synths and shiny guitar sparks. Just beautiful, really beautiful. Can’t wait to hear the comeback album.
Josh Homme‘s turbulent turbine QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE released a 5-track EP
last year, called Alive In The Catacombs. It was recorded in the literal catacombs, the
old cemetery tunnels under Paris. Five old, stripped-to-the-bone songs.
And it looks/sounds like he wants more of that intimacy with the new single EASY STREET.
Homme: “It’s kind of a funny song. It’s like hitting your funny bone, where it’s funny because
it hurts and it hurts because it’s funny. You’re serious, but it’s funny. We made it the way you’d make a demo. No click track, mistakes left in. It speeds up, it slows down, the claps aren’t great, but they’re not bad, and a bad clap adds this human thing you can’t fake.”
TUTV: Certainly another kind of feel good summer hit than the one from 2000. No bragging about taking a ton of drugs here. No macho riffs. No astronomic power speed. Easy Street is an acoustic power pop gem. Infectiously melodic, spiced with duet vocals here and there. Let the freaks and the birds sing.
Macho stone rockers QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE (Palm Desert, CA) fronted by general Josh Homme released their critically acclaimed 2nd LP RATED R this day 25 years ago, on 6 June 2000.
It was the first one with formerKyuss (co-founded by Homme) bassist Nick Oliveri (who was fired in 2004 following aggressive behaviour towards fans and his then-girlfriend) and the late great vocalist Mark Lanegan (1964-2022).
AllMusic wrote: “Longtime Kyuss fans might be disappointed at the relative lack of heaviness, but R’s direction was hinted at on the first QOTSA album, and Homme‘s experimentation really opens up the band’s sound, pointing to exciting new directions for heavy guitar rock in the new millennium.” – Score: 5/5
Singles: The Los Art Of Keeping A Secret / Feel Good Hit Of The Summer
– THE LOST ART OF KEEPING A SECRET –
– FEEL GOOD HIT OF THE SUMMER –
(Blistering live version)
Pitchfork: “On their fifth album, the White Stripes’ ambitions finally seem to outpace their limited musical vocabulary. Making an almost-entirely clean break with the jet-fueled blues
rock of Elephant and De Stijl, they forsake electric guitar on all but a couple of tracks, working instead with pianos, acoustic guitars, marimbas, and other assorted oddball percussion.”
Album: The Back Room
Their first one. No. 2 in the UK.
No21 in the USA.
Pitchfork: “They imitate bands with dramatic vocalists … but the best moments
on The Back Room aren’t the theatrical ones—it’s when the four of them are playing
and discovering their own chemistry”.
PLAY
. Instagram – All Albums
________________________________________________________________________________________________
AllMusic: “Don’t Believe the Truth the closest Oasis has been to great since the
summer of Britpop, when they were the biggest and best band in the world.”
AllMusic: “The group offers an album that refuses to be pinned down to a single
style. Despite the extended break between albums, dEus picks up right where they
left off with The Ideal Crash.”
The Guardian: “Hard-Fi’s edge over more derivative rivals lies in a formula
that delivers old Specials and Clash reggae vibes with the big-tune ratio of
a boy band.”
NME: ‘Lullabies To Paralyze’ will use its enigmatic mysticism to lull you into
a blissful daze so you don’t at first notice that the riffs have broken your neck.
Better. Than. Sex.”
Album: A Bigger Bang
22nd LP. #2 in the UK,
#3 in the US.
The Guardian: “There is a sense of finality about A Bigger Bang. It may not be quite
the blazing ship to Valhalla they intended, but then nor is it the unmarked grave you
might expect.”
Album: LCD Soundsystem
Debut one. #6 in the US,
#20 in the UK.
AllMusic: “Like just about everybody else these days, Murphy’s more skilled at creating isolated tracks than making full-lengths, even though this particular full-length has few weak spots and unfolds smoothly as you listen to it from beginning to end.”
AllMusic: “XTRMNTR is a nasty, fierce realization of an entire
world that has also lost the plot. It’s simply a protest, sonically
as well as lyrically, and maybe this would be a fine time to once
again rally behind something worthwhile.”
NME: “Ashcroft’s newly discovered stability has done nothing
to blunt his powers of communication or reduce his belief in
the apocalyptic potential of music.”
AllMusic: “True to Shellac form, the record is a sound purchase.
Within the domain of atonal, anti-commercial rock & roll, very
few are on their level.”
Album: Rated R
Second one. #16 in the US,
#54 in the UK.
AllMusic: “R is mellower, trippier, and more arranged than its predecessor, making
its point through warm fuzz-guitar tones, ethereal harmonies, vibraphones, horns,
and even the odd steel drum.”
