Lest We Forget – TUTV’s 20 Best Albums Of 2024 – Today: No. 20

We’re on our way, slowly but surely, to the end of 2025.
Instead of starting to think about this year’s best LPs,
let’s go back to 2024 and listen to TUTV’s 20 Best Albums
again and look back on what we wrote about each one
of them.

Today: No. 20

Band: SHELLAC (US)
Album: To All Trains
Released: 24 May 2024.
Their 6th one.


(Photo by Turn Up The Volume – Belgium 2017)

TUTV: It’s vintage Shellac/Steve Albini with its wayward song structures, its
capricious and minimalistic approach, its broken riffs, edgy hooks, sinewy
drumming, Albini‘s firm vocals and the raw and rough post-punk dynamics.

Absolutely weird to listen to this record,
knowing that the noise wizard is here no more.

He passed away on May 7 (2024), following a heart
attack. Only 10 days before the album release.
Sad loss.

ALBUM


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R.I.P.

Instagram – Bio – Albums

BIG BLASTS FROM THE PAST – 10 Classic Albums Turning 25 In 2025

Back in time

30 December 2024

PrimalTerminator

Band: PRIMAL SCREAM

Album: XTRMNTR
6th one, #3 in the UK.

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.”

PLAY


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Instagram – Linktree
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Artist: PJ HARVEY

Album: Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea
Her 5th longplayer. #23 in the UK. Platinum in the US.

NME: “A magnificent, life-affirming opus.”

PLAY


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Instagram – Linktree
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wHITEsTRIPES

Band: THE WHITE STRIPES

Album: De Stijl
The duo’s 2nd one. No. 137
in the UK. No. 38 in the US.

Rolling Stone: “Feisty and clever. Like everything about the White Stripes,
the album proves that you don’t need bombast to make a blues explosion.”

PLAY


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Instagram – Linktree
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Band: RADIOHEAD

Album: Kid A
4th LP. No. 1 in the UK, US, Ireland,
Scotland, New Zealand and Canada.

The Guardian:Even listeners raised on krautrock or
Ornette Coleman will find Kid A a mystifying experience.”

PLAY


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Instagram
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Artist: RICHARD ASHCROFT

Album: Alone With Everybody
Solo debut.

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.”

PLAY


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Instagram
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Band: SHELLAC

Album: 1000 Hurts
3rd full length.

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.”

R.I.P. Steve Albini.

PLAY


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Instagram
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Band: THE DELGADOS

Album: The Great Eastern
3rd longplayer. #12 in the UK, #37 in
their home country Scotland.

DIS: The Great Eastern is a majestic
journey of astounding beauty.

PLAY


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Instagram
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Band: GRANDADDY

Album: The Sophtware Slump
Second LP.

The New York Times: “A heart-achingly beautiful requiem for
a culture in which progress and technology have led to alienation
and disposability”.

PLAY


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Linktree
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Band: QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE

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.”

PLAY


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Instagram
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AtTheDriveInn

Band: AT THE DRIVE IN

Album: Relationship Of Command
Their 3rd. #33 in the UK,
#116 in the US.

BBC Music: “Mesmerising. A statement of
grand intent that could never be followed.”

PLAY


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Instagram

20 BEST ALBUMS OF 2024

– 1 –

Band: THE CURE
Album: Songs Of A Lost World
The Goth Gods’ 14th LP, their first
in 16 years.

Orchestrator Robert Smith about
their supreme new opus.

TUTV: In the past 16 years Robert Smith lost his mother, father, and brother.
All these painful events led to this extraordinarily touching record. It’s one
long, emotionally layered lament that works 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. Life and death.

Sonically, it feels like if you’re part of a funeral march that progresses in slow
motion. Almost every song starts with a long instrumental intro of waves of
mourning synths and weeping guitars, and every time when Smith‘s feverish
voice joins in, the sense of tristesse augments wondrously heavy-hearted.
5-star masterpiece!

SINGLE

ALBUM


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Instagram – All Albums
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– 2 –

Band: FRANK CARTER & THE RATTLESNAKES (UK)
Album: Dark Rainbow
Their 5th

TUTV: Musically, tattoo artist Carter and his accomplices have left their angry punk days behind them and moved closer to classic rock on this surprising and bold longplayer.

And it’s a truly staggering result with several melodramatic power ballads that generate goosebumps, and some stoner rock ebullitions to keep balance. Carter sings his heart out with monumental vivaciousness. A vocal tour de force throughout, dealing with up and down emotions.

SINGLE

ALBUM


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Linktree
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– 3 –

Band: FAT WHITE FAMILY (UK)
Album: Forgiveness Is Yours
Their 4th one

Lias Saoudi (voice/face/wordsmith/poet/writer): ‘Forgiveness Is Yours,’ is about life as eternal contingency… about no longer suspecting, but knowing that this shit will never get any easier… in fact, it’s about to get a whole lot worse, your body’s going to go into decay and the people you love will slowly start dropping dead around you… but somehow, you’ve smashed enough
of your expectations thus far in life, you’re sort of fine with it… you accept it.The overarching aesthetic themes at work here are torpor and further torpor still.”

TUTV: Without a shadow of a doubt their most startling, and most creative/inventive accomplishment. Sounds like FWF have written/recorded the bone-chilling soundtrack
for an entertaining Doomsday party. Enigmatic reflections, dark deliberations, distressing vibes, a John Lennon tribute and Saoudi as the foreboding messenger and sinister poet in the middle of it all. It’s the end of the world, as we know it, and it feels like Fat White Family.

SINGLE

ALBUM


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Instagram – Website
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– 4 –


Album artwork

Band: NICK CAVE AND THE BAD SEEDS
Album: Wild God
13th one


Press photo

Cave: “There’s no fucking around with this record. When it hits, it hits. It lifts you. It moves
you. I love that about it. I hope the album has the effect on listeners that it’s had on me. It bursts out of the speaker, and I get swept up with it.”

TUTV: Cave is the God of cloak-and-dagger balladry. Now here’s a God I can believe in. Again he shows why he’s one of the best ever crooners in the universe. And lyrically it
feels as if, after so many devastating, heart-crushing years, with the loss of two sons,
he lets sparks of light back in his life. God bless Nick Cave.

STREAM


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Instagram – Linktree
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– 5 –

Artist: JACK WHITE
Album: No Name
6th solo one

TUTV: White returns to his punk blues roots of the early days. Swipe after swipe,
blue stripe after blue stripe, kick after kick, clap after clap. A total of 13 thunder
strokes. High-wired electricity. Dope stuff.

ALBUM


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Instagram – Linktree
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– 6 –

Band: THE MYSTERINES (Liverpool, UK)
Album: Afraid Of Tomorrows
2nd LP

TUTV: The charismatic Lia Metcalfe‘s singular voice, both anxious and bewitching,
is all over this new, awe-inspiring full-length. Overall the sound is even more gloomy
and spine-chilling than on their debut from 2022.

It fits Metcalfe‘s introspective reflections on her turbulent past terrifically well.
They’re embedded in arresting songs that send shivers down your spine.

But, eventually, there’s a light shining
at the end of the Mysterines tunnel.
One that illuminates their future
and your stereo.

SINGLE

ALBUM


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Linktree
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– 7 –

Band: THE BLACK KEYS (Ohio, US)
Album: Ohio Players
Their 12th

TUTV: The star duo made an album with lots of bright pop tunes and some blues light
ones. The licks/riffs and hooks – about a thousand – haven’t that BK’s raw and rough edge as we are used to, but I don’t miss it whatsoever.

The overall sonority leans more towards power guitar pop (slow, mid-tempo and only
a couple of fast ones). I never thought that the tandem would come up after 23 (!) years with a pretty different sounding, coherent longplayer, without ignoring their blues roots that is. I played Ohio Players more than their whole catalog together. Say no more.

SINGLE

ALBUM


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Instagram – Website

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– 8 –

Artist: JEEN (Toronto, CA)
Album: Gold Control
Her 4th one

TUTV: The three main elements that make this album special are Jeen’s remarkable
voice, her high-quality songwriting expertise, and the heart-and-soul passion that streams throughout it. Whether Jeen rocks out, muses, or swings moods, she always holds your aural attention.

SINGLE

ALBUM


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Instagram – Website
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– 9 –

Band: RIDE (UK)
Album: Interplay
7th one

TUTV: With Interplay their shoegaze past goes into the dustbin. Ride came up here
with a multi-layered pop LP stuffed with arousing tunes, alternated with pepped-up reveries.

All songs are sublimely orchestrated and bathe in a psychedelic jacuzzi,
while vocalist Mark Gardner‘s velvet vocals match the radiant atmosphere
exquisitely. It’s a new ride, and it’s a gratifying one.

SINGLE

ALBUM


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Instagram – Website
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– 10 –

Duo: LIAM GALLAGHER and JOHN SQUIRE
Album: Liam Gallagher – John Squire


Daft album artwork designed by John Squire

TUTV: This first Mancunian collabortion sounds as if was made about 30 years ago.
Most tunes could be leftovers from The Stone Roses‘ 2nd and final 1994 LP Second Coming, the one on which Squire played his guitar exactly the way Jimmy Page did in Led Zeppelin for years. And Liam is Liam. Arms together on his back and letting his pipes do the talking. The two heroes just did what they wanted to do, making an album together and having fun doing it.

Before I was aware of it I had played the album about 10 times in 2 days.

Mind you this is not a masterwork whatsoever, but all 10 tunes are top-entertaining
and stick faster than I can say “I want the Stone Roses support Oasis on their reunion tour”?

SINGLE

ALBUM


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Liam Gallagher – John Squire
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– 11 –

Artist: T BONE BURNETT (US)
Album: The Other Side

TUTV: The Other Side is a concept record about a “mysterious couple” having
adventures in an otherworldly America. The by-now 76-year-old Burnett translates
their journey in lovey-dovey lullabies, heartfelt musings, and amourus ballads.

This is the perfect record for daydreaming and relaxation. Soft, mellow, and tender.
His slightly hoarse Americana voice enchants and entices all through this sepia-colored album. Pure romanticism. Pure songsmith.

SINGLE

ALBUM


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Linktree
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– 12 –

Artist: JUJU (Italy)
Brainchild of Sicilian multi-instrumentalist
and producer Gioele Valenti.
Album: Apocalypse Is God’s Spoiler


Photo by Turn Up The Volume

TUTV: Valenti is a jam champ and a groove master creating electrifying, trance-like vibrations that transfer you to the dark side of your mind where you can freely
fantasize and explore your own psyche.

Circling Krautrock-like psychedelia is all over the place. Choir chants and spacey percussion cause a tribal atmosphere à la The Brian Jonestown Massacre and The Dandy Warhols. Mind-bending and dream-triggering. As always.

SINGLE

ALBUM


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Linktree –
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– 13 –

Band: THE LIBERTINES
Album: All Quiet On The Eastern Esplanade.
4th one


Promo pic

TUTV: After the turmoil, chaos and drugs addictions (especially Doherty) of the early
years, the side-projects, solo records and getting clean and healthy the Libs are back, again. They’re not the boys in the band of yesteryear, they’re now grown-up men who
enjoy a stable life and still are obsessed by making music.

They became notable, experienced musicians who left their hedonistic lifestyle behind themselves for several years now. Not one dull moment, not one dull song on the eastern esplanade.

SINGLE

ALBUM


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Instagram – Linktree
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– 14 –

Band: FONTAINES D.C.
Album: Romance
4th LP

TUTV: The Irishmen have become first-class songwriters (which they already proved on previous LP Skinty Fia– – still my favourite one). Frontman Grian Chatten‘s lyrics show (again) his observative view on this modern-day, confused world and how it affects
his inner-self.

This is not their masterpiece yet to my ears, but it’s only a matter of
time that they will come up with a longplayer that will blow us all away.

SINGLE

ALBUM


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Instagram – Website
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– 15 –

Band: AMYL AND THE SNIFFERS (Australia)
Album: Cartoon Darkness
3rd one

Turn Up The Volume: Old skool punk ‘n’ roll? Absolutely. Any good? You betcha!
Amyl and her loud buddies made another roasting riff-manic-monster of a hell fucking
hell yeah
record. Pogo madness is back. Sturm un drang from start to finish. HOLY MOLY!

SINGLE

ALBUM


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Instagram – Website
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– 16 –

Band: THE SMILE
Sort of supergroup featuring 2 radioheads, Thom
Yorke
and Jonny Greenwood and drummer Tom Skinner.

Album: Cutouts.
Their 3rd LP in just 2 years
(Radiohead 8 in 31 years).

TUTV: By far their best to my ears. On the previous 2 ones they tried too hard
to not sound like Radiohead (which they did frequently anyway) and did it with
too many redundant orchestrations, too many unnecessary layers and a bit of
arty farty structures here and there.

Mind you these are good LPs but on this one they keep it far more simple resulting
in 10 very compelling pieces of mesmerizing music. Trippy fast ones alternate with slow
musing ones and throughout the arrangements are subtle, direct and most entertaining with Thom Yorke sounding, yes, at ease, not forcing his compassionate voice/vocals. Bingo.

SINGLE

ALBUM


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Instagram – Spotify
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– 17 –

Artist: RICHARD HAWLEY (Sheffield, UK)
Album: In This City They Call You Love
His 10th


Press photo by 📸: Dean Chalkley

TUTV: Nostalgia is the keyword all over this fully devoted record. As we already know
for a long time Hawley is a romantic at heart who’s in love with his city Sheffield since
he was a child. It’s more than just his hometown.

It’s the place where he experienced all things good and bad, happy and sad. It leads
to yearning renumerations, fanciful daydreams and wistful meditations. With his soft-heartened voice and late-night stories, the late great Roy Orbison comes to mind on
several occasions.

SINGLE

ALBUM


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Instagram – All Albums
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– 18 –

Artists: DEAD ANYWAY
British duo combining the dark lyricism of Kate Arnold
against the music and soundscapes of Marc Symonds.
Album: Tough, Listen

TUYV: Slow/mid-tempo/fast trip-hop tunes are wrapped in layers of
distortion and feedback, creating an eerie and at times sinister ambiance.

Massive Attack, Tricky, Arab Strap and Mike Skinner’s The Streets
and Laurie Anderson‘s latest opus Amelia come to mind.

DA resonates as EBM for people who come alive when the darkness sets in, far away
from our 24/7 suffocating life and the world’s destructive nature as we experience now, again.

Kate Arnold‘s spoken word stories evolve on waves of chilling synth soundscapes that actually ease one’s confused mind (mine, for sure) and transfer you to your space of imaginativeness. Trance massage it is. You’ll feel alive anyway.

SINGLE


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ALBUM


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Instagram – Spotify
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– 19 –

Band: LIP CRITIC
Mental electro-punks from NY
Album: Hex Dealer

“The singular mixture of classic punk/hardcore and electronic styles result in 12 frantic tracks of postmodern pop for the genreless future. Painted with a broad pallet of only the most extreme hues of emotion, each track is marked by a distinctive danceable mania.”

TUTV: Let your head kicked in with schizophrenic disco sledgehammers for illegal raves in batcaves where dropouts, misfits, loners, eccentrics, bohos, and other related outsiders gather to move in mysterious ways, far away from the normal world.


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Instagram – Linktree
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– 20 –

Band: SHELLAC (US)
Album: To All Trains
6th LP


(Photo by Turn Up The Volume – Belgium 2017)

TUTV: It’s vintage Shellac/Steve Albini with its wayward song structures, its
capricious and minimalistic approach, its broken riffs, edgy hooks, sinewy
drumming, Albini‘s firm vocals and the raw and rough post-punk dynamics.

Absolutely weird to listen to, knowing
that the noise wizard is here no more.

He passed away on May 7, following a heart attack.
Only 10 days before the album release. Sad loss.

ALBUM


.
R.I.P.

Instagram – Bio – Albums

STEVE ALBINI Street Revealed Near His Studio In CHICAGO

27 November 2024


Photo by Turn Up The Volume – Kortrijk, Belgium – 2017

Last May the music world was shocked when the sad news of
the sudden death of renowned producer STEVE ALBINI came
in. He died of a heart attack, only 61.

He produced so many artists/bands with Kim Deal as one
of the most recent ones. Albini produced her brand-new solo
album Nobody Loves You More.

It was so weird to see that a couple of weeks later Albini‘s band
Shellac, had their 6th LP, named TO ALL TRAINS, out. One of
the best albums of 2024 on my list.


.

Yesterday, a street arrow near his Electrical Audio studio in Chicago,
renamed Steve Albini Way, was officially revealed. Kim Deal spoke
at the ceremony and the Mekons and Jeff Tweedy played some songs.

Kim Deal: “He was a flawed human; he would contradict himself in two sentences.
But at his core he understood the value of each person. Well, not each person. If you
were a bully, he wouldn’t like you at all. Maybe he stuck up for people too hard. He
wanted to stick up for the underdogs. He really didn’t like ‘winners.’ I think he liked
people with a good, healthy dose of low self esteem.”


Photo by Turn Up The Volume – Shellac, 2017

10 BEST ALBUMS OF 2024 (So Far)

9 July 2024

We’re halfway 2024.
These 10 LPs were TUTV’s ears favorites
over the past 6 months.

Band: FRANK CARTER & THE RATTLESNAKES (UK)
Album: Dark Rainbow
Their 5th

TUTV said: “With tensely emotive singles Man Of The Hour and Brambles, tattoo artist
Carter seemed to let his angry punk days behind him and move towards classic rock.
This album confirms that surprising, bold move.

And it’s a truly staggering record, filled with several melodramatic power ballads that generate goosebumps and some stoner rock ebullitions. Carter sings his heart out with monumental vivaciousness. A vocal tour de force throughout, dealing with mixed love emotions. Dark Rainbow will impact your ears for a very long time.”

SINGLE

ALBUM


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Linktree

Band: FAT WHITE FAMILY (UK)
Album: Forgiveness Is Yours
4th one

Lias Saoudi, voice/face/wordsmith/poet/writer, about the LP: ‘Forgiveness Is Yours,’ is about life as eternal contingency… about no longer suspecting, but knowing that this shit will never get any easier… in fact, it’s about to get a whole lot worse, your body’s going to go into decay and the people you love will slowly start dropping dead around you…but somehow, you’ve smashed enough of your expectations thus far in life, you’re sort of fine with it…you accept it.The overarching aesthetic themes at work here are torpor and further torpor still.”

TUTV: Without a shadow of a doubt their best, most startling, and most inventive accomplishment. Sounds like FWF have written/recorded the bone-chilling soundtrack
for Doomsday. Poignant vibes, ominous reflections, dark ballads, and frontman Lias Saoudi as the foreboding messenger and sinister poet. It’s the end of the world, as we know it, and it feels like Fat White Family.

SINGLE

ALBUM


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Instagram
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Band: THE BLACK KEYS (US)
Album: Ohio Players
Their 12th

TUTV said: The star duo made an album with lots of bright pop tunes and some light
blues ones. The licks/riffs and hooks, about a thousand of course, haven’t that BK’s raw
and rough edge as we are used to.

The overall sonority leans more towards power guitar pop (slow, mid-tempo and only
a couple of fast ones). I never thought that the tandem would come up after 23 years (yes, twenty-three years!) with a different sounding, coherent longplayer, without ignoring their blues roots that is. Ohio Players will be the album that I’ll play more than their whole catalogue together.

SINGLE

ALBUM


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Instagram

Band: LIAM GALLAGHER & JOHN SQUIRE (UK)
Album: Liam Gallagher – John Squire
Their first collaborative album

TUTV said: It sounds as if the two rock stars made this record about 30 years ago when Oasis and The Stone Roses had both a glorious debut LP out. It sounds as if the 10 songs here, didn’t make those masterpiece albums, because they’re somehow lazy tunes. That’s what my ears told me at first. Two famous Manchester lads had some time to kill.

But I’ve played it countless times by now. All tracks are infectious and electrifying. Liam & John didn’t look back in anger and may be adored for this easy-peasy, but oh-so-effective psych-rock-blues longplayer. Touchdown.

SINGLE

ALBUM


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Instagram
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Band: THE MYSTERINES
Album: Afraid Of Tomorrows
2nd LP

TUTV said: The charismatic Lia Metcalfe‘s singular voice, both anxious and soul-stirring,
is all over this awe-inspiring new record. So instrumental for the band’s sound that resonates more poignant, gloomier and spine-chilling than on their debut.

It fits Metcalfe‘s introspective reflections on her turbulent past terrifically well,
with haunting and goosebumps-causing songs that have an imposing impact.

There’s always a light shining at the end of the Mysterines tunnel.
The 4 scousers are ready up for a triumphant future.

SINGLE

ALBUM


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Linktree
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Artist: JEEN (Toronto, CA)
Album: Gold Control
Her 4th one

TUTV said: The three main elements that make this album special are Jeen’s remarkable
voice, her high-quality songwriting expertise, and the heart-and-soul passion that streams throughout the record. Whether Jeen rocks out, muses, or swings moods, she always holds your aural attention.

The cliché is accurate here, ‘no fillers, all killers’. 10 intoxicating, 10 solid gold songs.
This first-rate longplayer should get at least the same attention as Sheryl Crow‘s
new one.

SINGLE

ALBUM


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Instagram
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Band: RIDE (UK)
Album: Interplay</
7th one

TUTV said: With Interplay the shoegaze past goes into the dustbin as the present Ride are fabulous. They come up with some terrifically arousing tunes, alternated with pepped-up reveries.

All songs are sublimely orchestrated and bathe in a psychedelic jacuzzi, while vocalist Mark Gardner‘s velvet vocals match the sonic atmosphere exquisitely. Ride have mixed emotions about today’s restless times, me too, but not about this record. Lots of five-star stuff.

SINGLE

ALBUM


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Instagram
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Band: SHELLAC (US)
Album: To All Trains
6th LP


(Photo by Turn Up The Volume – Belgium 2017)

TUTV said: It’s vintage Shellac/Steve Albini with its wayward song structures, its
capricious and minimalistic resonance, its broken riffs, edgy hooks, sinewy drumming, Albini‘s firm vocals and the raw and rough post-punk dynamics at play. Absolutely weird
to listen to it, with the incredible knowledge that Albini is here no more.

He passed away on May 7, following a heart attack.
Only 10 days before the album release.
Sad, really sad.

The album closes with the ominous track I Don’t Fear Hell, including these lines
“I don’t fear hell. Their baseball team is undefeated. If there’s a heaven, I hope they’re
having fun. ‘Cause if there’s a hell, I’m gonna know everyone.”
Sounds quite bizarre and macabre at this very moment. Maybe, just maybe, Albini is happy, wherever he might
be. Rest in peace.

ALBUM


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Instagram
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Band: MONOSCOPES (Italy)
Album: Endcyclopedia
Their 2nd full lenght

TUTV said: Monoscopes made an ideal record for the midnight hours, to relax
and escape from the daily rat race and lose yourself in your thoughts of choice.

Heavy-hearted lullaby pearls such as ‘The Electric Muse (I Wanna Know Why?)’, Hey Atlas and The Things You Want To Hide should be hits in a normal world. Imagine the moody musings of Evan Dando (The Lemonheads) interwoven with the shadowy electricity of NYC’s celebs Interpol.

And when they turn up the temperature and the amps, now and then, like on top-tier tracks ‘It’s A Shame About You’ and ‘Quite Life‘ you feel the mixed emotions coming through your speakers making their way to your heart and to your soul. Top!

SINGLE

ALBUM


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Instagram
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Artist: T BONE BURNETT (US)
Album: The Other Side

TUTV: As a solo artist, he recorded/released several LPs. As a producer, he worked
with Los Lobos, Elvis Costello, Brandi Carlile, and Robert Plant & Alison Krauss and so many
more. He toured with Bob Dylan and other famous friends and he won a bunch of Grammys.

The Other Side is a concept record about a “mysterious couple” having adventures
in an otherworldly America. The by-now 76-year-old Burnett translate their mixed
emotions
experiences in lovey-dovey lullabies, heartfelt musings, and nostalgic
ballads.

This is the perfect record for daydreaming and relaxation. Soft, mellow, and tender.
His slightly hoarse Americana voice enchants and entices all through this sepia-colored album. 12 bittersweet serenades for the midnight hours, away from our hyperbenthic reality. Pure compassionate romanticism. Pure songsmith.

SINGLE

ALBUM


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Instagram

5 BEST ALBUMS OF THE MONTH – MAY 2024

31 May 2024

Artist: BETH GIBBONS
Who: The voice/face of renowned British trip-hop outfit
Portishead who released (only) 3 LPs between 1994
and 2008.

Album: LIVES OUTGROWN

Gibbons about the album: “I realised what life was like with no hope. And that was
a sadness I’d never felt. Before, I had the ability to change my future, but when you’re
up against your body, you can’t make it do something it doesn’t want to do. People
started dying.

TUTV: Gibbons processes her pains of loss on this shadowy solo debut.
She still has that ghostly vocal vulnerability, as if she wanders, in slo-mo,
in a thick fog far away from the real world, to to get away from her
harming demons.

Musically, the tone is both delicate and tender, mysterious and introspective, with an overall sense of disturbing catharsis, accompanied by mourning strings, big drums and acoustic melancholia. You need several spins to connect with Gibbons‘ enigmatic world, but in the end, the result is truly affecting.

– SINGLE –

ALBUM


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Instagram
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Album artwork

Two months ago renowned noise rock producer STEVE ALBINI
announced a new LP with his band SHELLAC, titled TO ALL TRAINS.
Their 6th and first in 10 years.

Unfortunately, Albini couldn’t experience its release (May 17)
as the fatal news came in, on May 7, of his passing following
a heart attack.

It wasn’t really certain if the release would go ahead or not. But here it is,
featuring his long-time, faithful friends/musicians Bob Weston (bass) and
drummer Todd Trainer.


(Photo by Turn Up The Volume – Belgium 2017)

The recordings already started in 2017 featuring several songs
the band used to play live for quite some time by then.

TUTV: It’s vintage Shellac/Steve Albini with its fractured song structures, its capricious and minimalistic resonance, its broken riffs, edgy hooks, sinewy drumming, Albini‘s poignant vocals and the raw and rough post-punk dynamics at play. Absolutely weird to listen to
it, with the incredible knowledge that Albini is no more.

The album closes with the ominous track I Don’t Fear Hell, including these lines
“I don’t fear hell. Their baseball team is undefeated. If there’s a heaven, I hope they’re
having fun. ‘Cause if there’s a hell, I’m gonna know everyone.”
Sounds quite bizarre and macabre at this very moment. Maybe, just maybe, Albini is happy, wherever he might
be. Rest in peace.

– ALBUM –


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Instagram

Band: RONKER
Who: 4 noise junkies
from Belgium

Album: FEAR IS A FUNNY THING, NOW SMILE LIKE A BABY

Info: “FIAFTNSLABB is not only an ode to celebrating naivety, the record is
deliberately kept very raw and playful. The band plays a kind of duplo-metal
that opts for simplicity and a wide color palette.

The band sounds hungry, nervous and exaggerated in its bipolar nature: the je-m’en-foutism of post-punk and the concrete character of 90’s alt-metal both contribute equally to their DNA. In their brew where chunks of hardcore are mixed with noise, indie, prog
and punk, no house is sacred anymore.”


Aaaarggghhhhh (photo by TUTV)

TUTV: No pop tunes, no songs about the bees and the trees. This record is stuffed with manicial mind-fuckers and badass brain-breakers that trash and slash your poor stereo relentlessly and mercilessly. The maddening man in the middle, mental vocalist Jasper, screams and howls, and spits and sneers, with bone-chilling and psychotic horsepower.

Think Kurt Cobain with 4 lungs, fronting a hellish hardcore gang featuring 3 other ruthless punks on an ear-splitting mission. No brakes, no breaks. No rest for the wicked. Ronker is
a barbaric force, their singer is an out-of-this-normal-world performer, their debut is a flabbergasting monster.

All you loonies out there, get out of your straitjackets, escape from the asylum
and jump up and down on your way home like post-punk kangaroos on speed.

The four mustache horsemen of the Apocalypse have arrived.

– SINGLE –

– ALBUM –


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Linktree
________________________________________________________________________________________________

Act: LEG PUPPY
Who: EBM fabricators of the third kind.

Album: HUMANITY 2.0
Their 8th longplayer

TUTV: Ever heard of politically and society-caring techno?
Well, thematically, it’s what this record is about. And the
alarming music is its perfect soundtrack.

As theoretical physicist Einstein said (1879-1955): “Blind belief in authority is the greatest enemy of truth” and English modernist novelist D.H. Lawrence (1985-1930) wrote: “Ours is essentially a tragic age, so we refuse to take it tragically“. Two quotes, so relevant in 2024, meaning that nobody, especially all power-greedy world leaders/politicians, ever listened carefully to what these geniuses had to say. No wonder these two masterminds show up on this record.

As Leg Puppy states about his UK country: “This used to be a hell of a great country.”
Again the narcissistic Tories fucked up. Brexshit is their awful work. Unfortunately,
they get away with their bullshit.

Sonically, Humanity 2.0 is heavily influenced by Puppy‘s natural musical habitat:
the 90s techno/acid house revolution, developed around the mid-1980s by DJs
from Chicago and British trance-dance and (il)legal rave-orientated acts such as
Chemical Brothers, The Orb, Leftfield, The Prodigy and lots of other e-tastic
crusaders. Throw all this together and you get Humanity 2.0.

Again LPI (Leg Puppy Intelligence) created an intoxicating
roller coaster with mind-exploring, electronic symphonies
for a 2024 space Odyssey.

Leg Puppy 1.0 is canceled, welcome to Leg Puppy 2.0

– SINGLE –

– ALBUM –


.
LP 2.0: Linktree
________________________________________________________________________________________________

Band: SEADOG
Who: The project of Brighton (UK) musicians
Mark Benton and Tom Chadd

Album: INTERNAL NOISE
2nd LP following their 2018 debut
Cabin Fever Blues.

Info: “The album explores the dichotomy between an inner turmoil that can plague a fragile mind and the euphoria of letting go and tuning out the outside world. The heavy burden of insomnia is a recurring theme while the album also celebrates the static hums and pulsating rhythms which contrast humans and machines.”

TUTV: Seadog alternate trippy synth dream-pop symphonies with delicate and subtle acoustic musings and with inventive, compelling compositions. Stylishly crafted melodies and crystalline harmonies are omnipresent, but in different tones and timbres, which makes Internal Noise a sonically multi-colored record.


📷 Zara Pears

Its production is spot-on, not over or underdone, the arrangements and orchestrations match the overall sparkling sonority. It’s obvious that a lot of work, creativity, energy and love went into this album. Give it a couple of spins and you’ll discover a high-songwriting-quality opus.

– SINGLE –

– ALBUM –


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Linktree

SPAIN’s PRIMAVERA SOUND FESTIVAL Names One Of The Stages After The Late STEVE ALBINI

21 May 2024


Photo by Turn Up The Volume – Belgium, 2017

It’s still unbelievable that noise rock producer STEVE ALBINI
has passed away, two weeks ago, due to a fatal heart attack.
Unreal.

With his band SHELLAC he played for nearly two decades
at the Primavera Sound Festival in Barcelona, Spain.

The trio first played there in 2006. They missed the next year, but since
2008, Shellac have played every edition and would play it again this year.

The festival’s organizers have now decided to name one of the stages
after Steve Albini. Several indie artists will play it and Shellac‘s brand-new
album TO ALL TRAINS will be aired regularly.


.
This year’s line-up
May 29 – June 2

Festival Website

Final Album ‘TO ALL TRAINS’ By STEVE ALBINI And His Band SHELLAC Is Out Now

17 May 2024


(Photo by Turn Up The Volume – Belgium 2017)

Two months ago renowned noise rock producer STEVE ALBINI
announced a new album with his band SHELLAC, titled TO ALL TRAINS.
Their 6th and first in 10 years.

Unfortunately Albini can’t experience the pleasure to be here today,
on the release day of the LP, as the fatal news came in, on May 7,
of his passing following a heart attack.

It wasn’t really certain if the release would go ahead or not. But here it is,
featuring his long-time, faithful friends/musicians Bob Weston (bass) and
drummer Todd Trainer.

The recordings already started in 2017 featuring several songs
the band used to play live for quite some time by then.


Album artwork

It’s vintage Shellac/Steve Albini with its wayward song structures, its capricious and minimalistic resonance, its broken riffs, edgy hooks, sinewy drumming, Albini‘s poignant vocals and the raw and rough post-punk dynamics at play. Absolutely weird to listen to
it, with the incredible knowledge that Albini is no more.

The album closes with the ominous track I Don’t Fear Hell, including these lines
“I don’t fear hell. Their baseball team is undefeated. If there’s a heaven, I hope they’re
having fun. ‘Cause if there’s a hell, I’m gonna know everyone.”
Sounds quite bizarre and macabre at this very moment. Maybe, just maybe, Albini is happy, wherever he might
be. Rest in peace.

STREAM/BUY


.

Shellac: Instagram

Live photos by Turn Up The Volume – Belgium 2017)

BIg Blasts From The Past – ‘1000 HURTS’ By STEVE ALBINI And His Band SHELLAC

12 May 2024

Last Wednesday the shocking news of the passing of STEVE ALBINI came in.
The renowned, highly praised noise rock producer from Chicago died of a
heart attack, at only 61. R.I.P.

Besides his extensive work as a producer (Nirvana, Pixies, PJ Harvey, Jimmy
Page
and Robert Plant and countless more) Albini had 3 bands of his own.

Big Black (1981-1987 / 2 LPs), Rapeman (1987-1989 / 1 LP)
and his best-known one Shellac (1992-2024 / 6 LPs)

It’s only 2 months ago that Albini announced a new album with Shellac,
titled To All Trains. Their 6th and first in 10 years. It is/was planned to
come out, next week, on May 17. No info yet about an eventual
delay of the release.

For now, I want to play their sharp-cutting, raw-and-rough
noise-rock album 1000 HURTS from 2000 to remember this
legend.


.
It was so great to see Shellac playing live
back in 2017 in Kortijk, Belgium on one of
their rare tours.

Photos by Turn Up The Volume