A Music Blog For People Who Like Music, Blogs & Music Blogs
Sure your hand can text at 300 wpm without even looking at your phone, but can that hand THROW UP THE HORNS? Well we certainly hope so, because we have more metal and hard rock for you than a…I dunno, mining and smelting convention? Yeah, let’s go with that.
Few artists these days have put out more records in such a short amount of time as King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard. Seventeen in just nine years. So it’s no surprise their latest work, KG & LW, is a pair of companion records released just a few months apart. This group from Melbourne have dipped their magical reptilian toes into a variety of interchanging genres, from soft jazz to heavy metal. But what they’re really known for is their particular brand of high energy, psychedelic rock. And these records dive head first into that weird, funky trip, with a stop here and there at a dance party, or stuck in some stoner sludge. Much of the songwriting borrows heavily from Turkish, Middle-Eastern, and Indian styles. Percussion and sitar play an integral part, as well as keys and synths. With fantastical imagery and just plain language, lyrically, these Aussies tend to freak out on many of the social issues, and institutions that cause most of our problems: the media, the climate, the church, the pandemic, and so on. One track leads into another, which leads into another, with barely a breath in between for most of both albums. Kind of feels like an endurance test. Never mind all the Z’s in this band’s name, because you’re not gonna sleep on K.G.L.W.
“Get Out” by Don’t Worry hits the sweetest of sweet spots somewhere between the heart-on-sleeve-but-still-wry songwriting of Frank Turner and the muscular post-punk pop of Ted Leo and the Pharmacists. It’s a smart rocker that hooks you out of the gate and has us more than just a little excited to see what’s next from the group.
After a bit of a hiatus, Norwegian punk rocker Ida Maria returns with the slick and muscular “Sick Of You.” It’s a Joan Jett style straight forward rock and roll with guitars and attitude turned up to 11. Bombastic and anthemic without drifting into pretentious, it’s a scene stealing strut of a number. The deep fake video is a lot of fun, and makes us realize just how far that sort of cheeky video technology has come since the days when Midwest post-punk noise rockers Tremendous Fuckers used JibJab for their own evil rock n’ roll purposes (as seen below – consider it a bonus B-Side).
We get a lot of top notch indie pop sent our way, and so it is our duty to share it with you now in a segment we call Top of the Pops uhhh, I mean Play Listy For Me – Indie Pop Volume 3.
Sunny War is a blues and folk artist creating songs inspired by her experiences from living on the streets and coming together as a community. She made her most recent record, Simple Syrup, in Venice Beach and founded a Food Not Bombs chapter in LA during the pandemic.
“not alone” by mehro is a sonically breezy affirmation of unity with a lyrical darkness giving it enough weight to make it mean something more than the cut and paste platitudes we often get with these types of songs. “This is for my humans laying in their beds alone tonight. This is for my people tortured by their thoughts until daylight. You’re not alone.” Who among us has not been that human before? Who among us hasn’t offered support of this sentiment to another human before?
An embarrassment of riches, riches of the musical variety, that’s our current situation and we are happy to share the wealth with new music from Marwood’s Fall, If By Whiskey, Polarized Eyes, Professor and the Madman, Mellowpunk, Natty Wylah, vern matz, Jeni Schapire and End of Code.
Today we have new music from Play Dead, Gjor Styggedom, Sofi Gev, Graham Grease and Elizabeth King and very short descriptions thereof.