You might dismiss this as a wild flight of fancy on my part.
Well... okay, but I'd probably replace the word "might" there with "should absolutely." Aldous Harding's lyrics aren't supposed to mean anything, they're supposed to be "enigmatic" and mildly surrealistic. It's actually one of the (few) things that makes her music distinctive. Trying to apply specific meanings to her stream-of-consciousness mind wanderings effectively cheapens the work and implies a direct philosophical/ideological agenda that just doesn't exist in her case. Instead she wants you, the listener, to feel like the philosopher as you ponder the "profound meaninglessness" of what she's singing.
What September 11, 2026 releases will YOU?Hear?Eventually?
I decided not to go on vacation after all, but this will be a relatively short one nevertheless, as explained earlier. Sept. 11 isn't a popular release date, especially when it's the 25th Anniversary. Obviously everyone remembers what happened with Nick Lowe's The Convincer, which was poised to be his most popular LP ever and perhaps one of the biggest-selling albums of all time, easily surpassing Michael Jackson's Thriller,AC/DC's Back in Black, and The Shaggs' Philosophy of the World. Unfortunately, al Qaeda had other plans, having been notorious fans of the Bay City Rollers and who never forgave him for his 1976 single "Bay City Rollers We Love You." As soon as they found out about The Convincer's Sept. 11, 2001 release date, they set their plans in motion โ and, well, the album ended up not selling so good. (Among other things that happened.)
Perhaps not coincidentally, The Proclaimers have moved the release date for their new LP, You May Offend, to Sept. 25 (maybe they were worried the original 9/11 release date might "offend" people), where they'll be competing head-to-head with Blondshell, M83, Protomartyr, Soft Cell, Penelope Isles, and The Wolfgang Press, as well as the long-awaited (40 years!) debut LP by The Catburgers. With them out of the picture, that just leaves Bloc Party as the only band with significant name recognition who have new material out this week that's of any real interest to me, though to be honest I've never been a big fan of theirs either. The album is called Anatomy of a Brief Romance, and they've got Trevor Horn back as their producer. It's slickly commercial pop-rock to be sure, but at least it should sound pretty good though a pair of speakers.
As for bands with name recognition that I'm not interested in, NWOBHM stalwarts Tygers Of Pan Tang have a new one called Electrifyed, which seems like an odd choice for a title because (putting aside the misspelling) it implies that their earlier albums were somehow not electrified, which is clearly not the case at all. Regardless, it sounds just like their other stuff (which is to say, highly electrified), so fans won't be disappointed. And if you're from Belgium โ as you really should be โ Killer, perhaps Belgium's best-known heavy metal band whose first LP was released in 1979, is putting out their "farewell album," The Grand Finale. Good title! No confusion there.
Other than those, we have...
Sylvan Esso, Ow โ
I'm going to say this album is my pick-of-the-week because it's a good listen, but it suffers from the same really basic surface issues as the Francis of Delirium album from May 29. The band name sounds like the name of an effรฉte 1960s French pop singer, the album's title is something Elon Musk might have named one of his illegitimate kids, and the album cover โ which might be a nod to the prism effect on Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon โ is mediocre at best (though admittedly, it's not as bad as Francis of Delirium's, and it's better than most of Sylvan Esso's previous album covers... still, I'd rather just see the nicely-dressed woman with the sledgehammer, without the prism effect or whatever it is). So instead of what you're expecting, you get the fifth album by a husband-&-wife post-punkish duo (with occasional electropop/tripgaze) from Durham, North Carolina. It's well-recorded, somewhat fun, and has some cool songs with titles like "Hot Blob" and "Good at Pain" (track 4, "Concrete Glen," samples Sigur Ros's "Svefn-g-englar" โ somewhat artlessly, but it's still sort of cool I guess, in an "it's yoo-woooo" sort of way). Simply put, I like this LP, quite a bit actually, but this band needs serious marketing help.
Angela Autumn, Believer
"Believer? I barely know her!" Here's an almost (but crucially, not quite) straight-up pop-Americana album (her second) and while this clearly isn't the sort of thing I usually go for, I'm still a sucker for women who have waifish, sometimes-plaintive voices like this. (I don't know why, I just am, okay?) And though she's based in Nashville, this is more of an Appalachian-style indie/folk-rock LP than anything that could be described as "country." The songs don't strike me as entirely "traditional," either โ she has the singing style for it, but there are some decent rock tunes on this LP, and occasional, and subtle, electropop and even psych-pop "flourishes" that add to the charm. Nicely done!
This Is Lorelei, The Singer In My Band Nate Amos is the guy who handles most of the instrument-playing for Water From Your Eyes (WFYE), but doesn't get to sing because he's not as good at that as lead singer Rachel Brown (not to be confused with the even-better Rachel Browne from Field Mouse). And that's really the problem with this, his fourth album as This is Lorelei: The vocals are "just okay," dynamics are lacking, and the nom de plume he's chosen would have you think you're going to hear a female singer named "Lorelei" (or even just Rachel Brown) instead of what you actually get. The music here is somewhat tepid โ a bit quirky-sounding at times, and maybe catchy if you give it enough listens, but ultimately I don't think it's up to the standard set by WFYE's last two or three albums.
Asia Menor, Vaho(released today)
This band from Santiago, Chile bills itself as an art-punk/noise act (with all lyrics in Spanish), but I would almost describe it as "primitive horrorcore" with a strong Captain Beefheart influence. It's pretty chaotic, but with unexpected moments of brilliance that crop up once in a while to keep you interested. Definitely not a pop album, by any objective standard, but it does occasionally use pop-like sonic approaches to lull you into a false sense of security before trying to kill you or whatever.
The Tubs, Hard Life
From London, the Tubs strike me as a blue-eyed-soul/R&B outfit that thinks it's a power-pop group, or perhaps vice-versa. That's not a criticism, though... the album is upbeat and has a fair amount of energy to it, and it's also sometimes quite danceable, but their cover art is consistently terrible and they seem to reject any sort of musical or visual sophistication to the point of being practically retro. Those things aren't enough to torpedo the album, though. (Most torpedoes are too big to fit into tubs anyway.)
Masked Band Dept.
Nothing this week, at least nothing I could find. (And yes, I did check the metal releases.) I'm disappointed, but I can see why masked bands would think it's disrespectful to release albums on a big 9/11 anniversary, since Osama bin Laden and his boys used to wear those weird "Howard the Duck" masks pretty much all the time.
Next week...
As you'd expect, next week is going to be big, because people who might have released their new stuff tomorrow decided to wait a week. It may be the biggest week of the entire second half of the year, with new LPs from Echo & the Bunnymen (I guess they're back?); a bevy of female solo artists including Frankie Rose, Emma Ruth Rundle, Kristin Hersh, Carly Rae Jepsen, and Susanna Hoffs; and last but probably not least, Neil Young & The Chrome Hearts. Until then, etc. ๐
Well... okay, but I'd probably replace the word "might" there with "should absolutely." ....
Thank you. Itโs wonderful to always have someone to bring you back down to earth!))
Iโm now living literally on virtual wheels, and my exploration of new releases is significantly delayed.
And I don't get hung up on genres or the artists' nationalities. I either like the music or I don't.
The Exbats managed to give the public a preview of most of the tracks from their album beforehand. Whatโs more, these tracks usually appeared without any fanfare or announcements. In terms of hit songs, this album is definitely in the lead so far; Iโve already counted three. Iโm sure thatโs enough to make it the Album of the Week.
The Exbats - My Dinner With Crumar (11/IX-2026/37) (Album)
An album by the musicians whose only single also made it onto my playlist of the week:
Wrong Man - Here's That Feeling (11/IX-2026/37) (Album)
This is the second installment of an album by iconic Russian musicians who are also keen on immersing the listener in solving puzzles. Fortunately, they chose the absolute best time for it.)) The first part hasn't lived up to my expectations so far; I'm pinning my hopes on the second. For now, there is only a link to the single from this part.
ะฅะฐะดะฝ ะะฐะดะฝ [Hadn Dadn] - ะญะถะตะฝ. ะงะฐััั 2 (11/IX-2026/37) (EP)
As for bands with name recognition that I'm not interested in, NWOBHM stalwarts Tygers Of Pan Tang have a new one called Electrifyed, which seems like an odd choice for a title because (putting aside the misspelling) it implies that their earlier albums were somehow not electrified, which is clearly not the case at all. Regardless, it sounds just like their other stuff (which is to say, highly electrified), so fans won't be disappointed. And if you're from Belgium โ as you really should be โ Killer, perhaps Belgium's best-known heavy metal band whose first LP was released in 1979, is putting out their "farewell album," The Grand Finale. Good title! No confusion there.
Huh. I've never heard of Killer. As an old school metal head, I'll have to check out a few of their early releases. I wonder what Dihansse thinks of them. ๐ค
Tygers of Pan Tang! Nice shout out! I really dig their first couple of albums, especially...
The Exbats managed to give the public a preview of most of the tracks from their album beforehand. Whatโs more, these tracks usually appeared without any fanfare or announcements. In terms of hit songs, this album is definitely in the lead so far; Iโve already counted three. Iโm sure thatโs enough to make it the Album of the Week.
The Exbats - My Dinner With Crumar (11/IX-2026/37) (Album)
I liked that one; I thought it was a bit too loose and lo-fi, and in particular their singer isn't recorded properly at all, but I can certainly see how people might recommend it. Still, with the lyrical refrain on track 1 being what it is (she repeats "just like a little bitch" about two dozen times), that could reduce the hit potential quite a bit, at least in the English-speaking world. I was also disappointed by the fact that you never hear any sort of classic Crumarโข organ sound anywhere on the album โย Barry Andrews used a Crumar organ extensively on XTC's Go 2, which I currently have ranked as my #1 album ever, so of course I'm listening to this thing and wondering "where's that frickin' Crumar?" literally the whole time. But that's more of a "me problem."
There were actually nine new albums I considered listing this week but decided not to โ I heard at least two tracks from each of them, but they all seemed to have some sort of pesky flaw or weakness going on. I'm beginning to suspect that reviewing all these new releases each week is making me more "picky" and selective than I have been in the past.
Just for the record, though, here's the list (not including the ExBats), in roughly the order I'd probably rank them. To be clear, I'm not recommending these or advising anyone to check them out, but all of them are at least interesting in their own way. (Most of them are now fully available for streaming on Bandcamp, and as of now none of them have been added to BEA.)
ODAE, MOIREMOIREMOIRE: Experimental electro-tweepop from Texas with lots of noise effects and what-not
Pretty Sick, Anarchy: Indie/post-punk female solo act from NYC
Beans, Less Louder: Fun (but conventional) rock band from Melbourne
The Meffs, Business(Apple Music link): Old-school British punk with a great female singer
TsuShiMaMiRe, The Greatest World: Long-running (27 years) Japanese girlpunk trio
Dead Horse, Caught The Nonsense: Quirky, slightly-silly post-punk from London (but not enough for an XTC comparison)
Modern Apartments, Light on Water: Somewhat Kraftwerk-ish instrumental electronica from London
Obviously one (or more) of these could unexpectedly take off and become hugely successful, in which case I'll look dumb for calling them an "also-ran," but that's the nature of the game, I guess! ๐
Huh. I've never heard of Killer. As an old school metal head, I'll have to check out a few of their early releases. I wonder what Dihansse thinks of them. ๐ค
They're kind of a Motorhead-style band. And if I'm being (brutally) honest, Belgium hasn't really produced a lot of metal bands, at least not famous ones โย I just looked at the Wikipedia category for Belgian heavy metal musical groups and while it's far from exhaustive, there was only one band on it (other than Killer) that I'd heard of, namely Channel Zero. They've got 8 albums listed here on BEA, but their highest album ranking is 38,424, so... I dunno, maybe they're the most commercially successful Belgian metal band? Even if they're not the "best-known." (Killer has only two albums on BEA, and neither of them have enough ranking points here to even make a dent.)
Of course, the English would say something derisive like "must be something in the waffles," but personally I think it's just the overall culture, similar to France, Spain, and Italy โย they all like to dress nice and not smell bad there, so that makes it pretty hard for them to be proper metalheads.
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MadhattanJack
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