The floodgates are beginning to open again and we’re seeing some absolutely excellent new releases come out! The following three releases made it impossible to do a proper Record of the Week for the August 16th release week, so without futher ado, here are some excellent albums to check out!
War on Drugs – Slave Ambient (Secretly Canadian)
Have you ever had an album that people wanted you to describe and the only thing you could come up with is that it’s legitimately good music? That’s exactly what we have here. Sure we could try and pool together a bunch of bands to compare it to. There is some Spacemen 3 in there. Hell, I think there is some old Fleetwood Mac in there. There is also a large blueprint of what the former War on Drugs guitarist, Kurt Vile, has based an entire music career on. Most of all though, we have an album that doesn’t hide behind gimmicks and is the product of some absolutely phenomenal songwriting. Essential purchase.
Listen to “Come to the City” from War on Drugs’ Slave Ambient
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Case Studies – The World Is Just a Shape to Fill the Night (Sacred Bones)
If you’ve been in the store lately, you’ve probably heard us freaking out about some new release on Sacred Bones. They’ve been just absolutely killing it this year with the new Moon Duo, the Men, Human Eye, Religious Knives, Fresh & Onlys, Cult of Youth, Slug Guts…the list goes on. Well the debut release by Case Studies shows the label putting out something a bit different. Featuring the Duke half of store favorites the Dutchess & the Duke, Jesse Lortz, he’s constructed an album that draws heavy comparisons to Leonard Cohen. Some excellent darker folk songs that weave stories, Case Studies trumps anything the Dutchess & the Duke did together, which is not an easy feat.
Listen to “My Silver Hand” from Case Studies’ The World Is Just a Shape to Fill the Night
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Fool’s Gold – Leave No Trace (IAMSOUND)
Fool’s Gold released an album a couple years back, a couple months after Foreign Born released their excellent Secretly Canadian debut, Person to Person. At the time, I didn’t know they shared members but recognized some similarities, such as their penchant to write some excellent summer pop tunes. I eventually put the connection together months later and was ecstatic to see Fool’s Gold were releasing a follow up.
The new album, Leave No Trace, continues the trend of excellent pop songs. To describe Fool’s Gold might best be summed up by this sentiment: It’s like a Vampire Weekend album you don’t feel guilty about listening to. It’s afro-pop infused indie rock in a way that it’s not blatantly ripping off Graceland. An absolutely excellent record to wrap up the Summer with.
Listen to “The Dive” from Fool’s Gold’s Leave No Trace
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