Following on from Somewhere last month and ahead of their debut EP Visits, Colleagues have just put out Talk It Out. Expect a lush dreamy track and it is here to brighten up your Friday... Take It Out is a holiday in aural form, full of big sweeping synths and vocal harmonies.
Get on it and look out for Visits, out on 18 May.
Titus Andronica's last UK-released album The Monitor was one of my absolute favourite things about 2010. In fact just last week I went back to check if they had released anything since and was dismayed to see they hadn't.
Well it turns out my concerns that they may have disappeared were misplaced. Titus Andronicus return! With a new album called The Most Lamentable Tradgedy! And this awesome new track and lyric video Dimed Out!
As always their ramshackle mess of noise is a beer-soaked anger-fuelled mess and it's bloody glorious. In the UK we're about to head into the most contentious and unpredictable election of my lifetime, and every note of this record expresses the anger and annoyance I feel about every stupid idiot who wastes their vote, makes a decision based on a newspaper headline or fails to understand at least a fraction of the actual policy differences between the major party policies.
So here it is: One of the major parties wants to save $12bn from the welfare budget yet refuses to tell the nation how until after the election is over. If you vote without knowing what you are voting for, you are a fucking idiot.
You can thank Titus Andronicus for this angry rant, and yes I am aware of the irony in advocating voting in a post about a band that sports the anarchy symbol. So whatever... Scroll to the video, play it, then play it again. Then play it once more to be sure. Then vote wisely.
Lurid Glow is the follow-up album to Athens, Georgia band Reptar's Body Faucet and it is nothing short of a explosion of indie-dance-plastic-rock. Like the sound of Modest Mouse and Talking Heads stuck in a lift, Lurid Glow is full of nervous energy and infectious hooks.
Opener No One Will Ever Love You sets the tone, guitarist and vocalist Graham Ulicny’s yelping vocals pouring out like urgent catcalls whilst the remaining members conjure a stuttering crescendo of noise. It’s exactly what a band named after the dayglo dinosaur in Rugrats should sound like.
It is slightly later on that Lurid Glow really demonstrates what Reptar are capable of however. Cable is a jazz-funk hot-mess of a track. Ulicny’s vocals alternate between high-pitched squeals and the beast-like shouts that punctuate the end of each line of the verse in what must be the most terrifying vocal performance since Future Island’s Waiting On You. It’s the kind of track where every single second feels impossibly brilliant. The drilling brass kicks that start each off each bar, the staggered rhythms. And it has the best bridge you will ever hear - everything seemingly melting into a sunshine melody before the repeatedly shouted refrain, a plea of “I wanna be yours” that sounds genuinely desperate.
With a relatively short duration of 42-minutes, Reptar still manage to fit in some variation here. Just when you think you have them pinned down they throw in something like the soft, ballad like Amanda, a track that calls to mind the worldly maturity of Vampire Weekend. Every Chance I Get revolves around an REM-sized chorus, Ulicny doing his best to express emotion through a wall of lyrical obtusity. His urgent delivery culminating with the band almost physically hammering the point home.
Their debut met mixed reviews, but out of the albums I’ve heard so far this year, none has kept me as entertained or intrigued so much as Reptar’s Lurid Glow. It's a bit day-glo and you can rightly accuse them of taking inspiration from some of the past decade's best bands, but in Lurid Glow it feels like Reptar have hit their stride.
Lurid Glow is out now on Joyful Noise. Order from iTunes [affiliate link], stream on Spotify above and check out the video for Cable below.
LA-based future R&B star Gallant has just followed up previous breakthrough track Open Up with this new track, Talking In Your Sleep. It's a dense, fizzy sounding track that sees Gallant's fantastic vocal range set against complex but poppy production work from STiNT that writhes and stutters as Gallant pours out his feelings.
As well as the track below check out his notebook, where Gallant has written about the song.
Following on from her track Shelter back in February comes this, a collaboration with Manchester based musician Synkro.
Lyves is North London-based singer, songwriter and producer Francesca Bergami, who is of Australian and Italian heritage and grew up in Portugal before settling in London to study psychology. Body Close is the second track from Lyves' forthcoming debut EP and Synkro's production style provides a perfect platform for Lyves' vocal delivery.
Synkro is signed to R&S sister label Apollo and his debut album, due later summer 2015, will also feature Body Close.