Notable Releases of the Week (2/20)

It’s been an eventful week for music that’s included new album announcements from the Foo Fighters and Failure, an exciting Hotelier announcement, and lots more. Dave and I talk about those things on the new episode of BV Weekly, on which we also wade into this past week’s indie sleaze discourse and Gene Simmons’ comments about rap music not belonging in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

As for this week’s new albums, I highlight seven below, and Bill tackles more in Indie Basement, including Peaches, Apparat, Hen Ogledd (Richard Dawson), and the Would-Be-Goods. On top of those, this week’s honorable mentions include the U2 EP, Mumford & Sons, Moby, Mirah, Mx Lonely, Exhumed, Altin Gün, Mozzy & EST Gee, Babyfxce E, Chained to the Bottom of the Ocean, New Found Glory, Hilary Duff, Lil Tjay, David Hillyard & The Rocksteady 7, Nathan Fake, Rusty Santos, Chris Garneau, Abronia, Sports, Steven Brown (Tuxedomoon), Abstracted, Liz Cooper, Spill Tab, Bryce Vine, Lucid Express, Olivia Belli, The Band Of Heathens, the Institute EP, the Trauma Ray EP, the Mothica EP, the Azshara/Unmoved split, the Exit Life/Rejoice split, and the expanded edition of Tori Amos’ 2001 covers album Strange Little Girls.

Read on for my picks, and listen to the new episode of BV Weekly for more of this week’s new music and music news.

Baby Keem – Ca$ino (pgLang/Columbia)
With help on two songs from his cousin Kendrick Lamar, Baby Keem returns with a tight, narrative rap album that varies between dead-serious moments and fun ones.

In a world that’s constantly putting pressure on rising rappers to quickly capitalize on any breakthroughs, Baby Keem is playing a different game. He started blowing up off the strength of his official debut album, 2021’s The Melodic Blue, and he only got bigger after opening his cousin Kendrick Lamar’s Big Steppers Tour. But what he did next was retreat from the spotlight entirely; he hasn’t performed live or released so much as a guest verse in nearly three years.

That changes today with Ca$ino, an album that was announced only one week ago and released without any pre-release singles. It’s reminiscent of Kendrick Lamar’s own approach–his cousin always prioritizes quality over quantity–and that extends to the album itself as well. Following the 16-song, 53-minute The Melodic Blue, Ca$ino is a tight 11 songs in 37 minutes. It’s more the concise Illmatic approach than the bloated, 20+ song approach we see so much of in mainstream rap today. It even has a baby photo on the cover. The album opens with “No Security,” which sets the tone right away. It’s a dramatic intro, diving into family and childhood themes that continue to show up throughout the LP. And then, as rap albums with dramatic intros tend to do, Ca$ino shifts to something you can bang your head to, with its trap rager of a title track. From there, Ca$ino keeps seesawing between the dead-serious moments and the fun ones. Kendrick shows up twice, first with a show-stealing guest verse on “Good Flirts” and then with an uncredited hook on “House Money.” And even when he’s not on the song, his influence is felt. (I hear a little OutKast sometimes too.) Like his cousin, Keem is devoted to the technical prowess and the storytelling aspects of mid ’90s to early 2000s hip hop, and he knows how to seamlessly weave in the more modern moments too. He’s clearly studied the classics, he knows what it takes to make an important album, and on Ca$ino he’s giving it his all.

The Messthetics & James Brandon Lewis – Deface The Currency (Impulse!)
Picking up where they left off on their killer debut, Fugazi offshoot The Messthetics and saxophonist James Brandon Lewis give us another dose of jazz/punk crossover.

In 2024, The Messthetics (the jazz trio featuring Fugazi‘s rhythm section of Joe Lally and Brendan Canty, plus guitarist Anthony Pirog) teamed up with saxophonist James Brandon Lewis to release one of the best jazz/punk crossover albums in recent memory with their collaborative self-titled LP, and now–two years and two James Brandon Lewis albums later–they’re back with another. Deface the Currency picks right up where these four musicians left off, navigating the middle ground between punk and jazz in ways that feel genuinely fresh. Joe Lally and Brendan Canty’s rhythm section is as hard-edged and groovy as it is in Fugazi, James Brandon Lewis has skronk for days, and Anthony Pirog gives us even more in the shredding department than he did on the first LP.

WILLOW – Petal Rock Black (Three Six Zero)
Willow Smith pivots to psychedelic soul, spiritual jazz, and tribal polyrhythms, with help from George Clinton, Kamasi Washington, and Tune-Yards.

The musically-shapeshifting WILLOW (Smith) has bounced from electropop to R&B to pop punk to indie rock and more since the 25-year-old began her career as a child star in the early 2010s, and now she’s in totally new territory once again on Petal Rock Black, an album that was self-produced and features Willow playing many of the instruments herself. It treks through psychedelic soul, spiritual jazz, tribal polyrhythms, a Prince cover, and more–it’s what you might expect from an album that has George Clinton, Kamasi Washington, and Tune-Yards all featured, as this one does. Willow’s lyrics vary between wordless chants, abstract poetry, earth mother symbolism, religion, and love. It’s not just yet another genre shift for Willow; it’s a spiritual awakening.

Toys That Kill – Triple Sabotage (Recess)
The cult pop punk heroes do what they do best on their first album in 10 years.

Between F.Y.P., Toys That Kill, Underground Railroad to Candyland, Clown Sounds, and other projects, Todd Congelliere has been holding it down for raw, garagey, West Coast pop punk for over 30 years. He’s a cult hero, his bands are your favorite band’s favorite bands (especially if your favorite band is Joyce Manor), and he has’t lost his touch one bit. Triple Sabotage is the first Toys That Kill album in a decade, and it sounds as fiery as Todd ever has. It’s a batch of 12 no-frills punk songs that are as revved-up as they are sweetly melodic–exactly what you want from this band, and not a step slower than you’ve ever heard them.

Triple Sabotage by Toys That Kill

Curren$y, Larry June & The Alchemist – Spiral Staircases (Freeminded/EMPIRE)
Three masters of stoned, laid-back rap come together.

If you like smooth, stoned, laid-back rap music, then you should be very excited that Larry June, Curren$y, and The Alchemist have just released a collaborative album. Both Curren$y and Larry June have multiple projects produced entirely by The Alchemist (including Curren$y’s with Freddie Gibbs and Larry June’s with 2 Chainz), and Curren$y and Larry have collaborated with each other multiple times, including on Curren$y’s Alchemist-produced album Continuance, so it should come as no surprise that these three have a lot of chemistry together.

Hans Gruber and the Die Hards – Hans Gruber and the Die Hards (self-released)
The chaotic Texas ska-punk band is back with another dose of high-speed, pointed fury.

One of the fastest, most hard-hitting bands in modern ska-punk is back with a new self-titled album that came as a surprise release earlier this week. It’s everything you want from this band and more: high-speed circle-pit chaos, a pointed social/political point of view, hints of Latin music and klezmer, guest vocalists and instrumentalists adding to the album’s many layers… the list goes on. Picture a cross between Voodoo Glow Skulls and Gogol Bordello, and then picture it even faster.

Or Hans Gruber and the Die Hards by Hans Gruber and the Die Hards

Aaron Shaw – And So It Is (Leaving)
The debut album from this rising LA jazz staple was made with members of André 3000’s New Blue Sun band, and it features interpretations of Kendrick Lamar/Flying Lotus and Chick Corea.

This album actually came out last week but better late than never. Aaron Shaw is a rising jazz saxophonist and flautist who’s played with Tyler the Creator, Anderson .Paak, Herbie Hancock, Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, and others, and he’s one of the “Friends” in Carlos Niño & Friends, the collective led by jazz trailblazer Carlos Niño who many now know as the co-producer and percussionist of André 3000’s New Blue Sun. And So It Is is Aaron’s debut album as a bandleader, which Niño also co-produced and plays drums/percussion on, and New Blue Sun contributor Nate Mercereau contributed to it as well. It’s a gorgeous album that’s split between the type of meditative, transportive jazz that Alice Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders helped pioneer and more of a calm, piano-fueled, mid ’60s post-bop vibe, including an interpretation of Chick Corea’s “Windows” (retitled “Windows to the Soul”). It ends, however, with an ode to something much more modern–“Never Catch Me Out Of Alignment” is a re-imagining of “Never Catch Me” by Kendrick Lamar and (Alice Coltrane’s nephew) Flying Lotus. It’s a reminder that the conversation between the old and the new, between jazz, hip hop, electronic, and beyond, is never-ending.

And So It Is by Aaron Shaw

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Read Indie Basement for more new album reviews, including Peaches, Apparat, Hen Ogledd, and the Would-Be-Goods.

Looking for more recent releases? Browse the Notable Releases and Indie Basement archives.

Looking for a podcast to listen to? Check out the latest episodes of our weekly music news podcast BV Weekly and the BV interviews podcast.

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