Notable Releases of the Week (6/27)

It’s been both a very hot week in New York and also an historic one, with (former rapper) Zohran Mamdani pulling off a big upset against Andrew Cuomo in the NYC mayoral Democratic primary. It’s also been a busy music week, with moments like Olivia Rodrigo covering Fontaines D.C., Cardi B finally announcing her album, Erykah Badu sharing the first tastes of her album with The Alchemist, and plenty of new releases to listen to.

I highlight eight new records (and one reissue) below, and Bill tackles more in Indie Basement, including Frankie Cosmos, BC Camplight, Jeanines, and Lightheaded. On top of those, this week’s honorable mentions include Pig Pen (Matty Matheson’s hardcore band with Alexisonfire’s Wade MacNeil, Daniel Romano, etc), Fishbone, Merzbow, Wavves, Kevin Abstract, Lizzo, Smut, Seedbed, Ready For Death, Blood Vulture (Two Minutes to Late Night), Sodom, Mydreamfever (aka Parannoul), AJ Suede, Juan Wauters, Pi’erre Bourne, Jakko M. Jakszyk (King Crimson), Histamine, Teri Gender Bender, DJ Sabrina the Teenage DJ, Pan American & Kramer, Madison McFerrin, Adrian Quesada, Durand Jones & The Indications, Sean Nicholas Savage, The Whimbrels (Swans, Glenn Branca Ensemble), Late Night Drive Home, Pleasure Pill, Tech N9ne, Bktherula, Sada Baby, Kota the Friend, Bizzy Banks, Water Machine, Gelli Haha, Parker McCollum, Ringlets, Russ, Zoh Amba, Tim Barnes, Elle Barbara, Robert Randolph, Sharpie Smile, Cole Swindell, Daisy the Great, Durry, Frankie Grande, Nick León, Herbert & Momoko, HLLLYH, TSS, Kerri, Maoli, Mareux, Lauren Spencer Smith, Hot Milk, Badflower, the Cosmic Joke EP, the KATSEYE EP, the Skegss EP, the Starling EP, the Kamaiyah & Dj Idea EP, the Lisa/Liza EP, the Tortoise remix EP (ft. Broken Social Scene, Makaya McCraven & more), the Mizmor ambient album, Mike Huguenor’s (of Jeff Rosenstock’s band, Hard Girls, Shinobu) instrumental guitar album, the Botch live album of their latest final show, the archival Motörhead record, Blonde Redhead’s album of reworked Sit Down for Dinner material, the Barbra Streisand duets album (ft. Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan, Mariah Carey, Ariana Grande, Sting, Seal, Hozier, Laufey & more), Bruce Springsteen’s Tracks II: The Lost Albums box set, and the F1 soundtrack (ft. Doja Cat, Chris Stapleton, Ed Sheeran, Tate McRae, Sexyy Red, Peggy Gou, Burna Boy & more).

Read on for my picks, and for even more of this week’s new music and music news check out the new episode of the BV Weekly podcast. What’s your favorite release of the week?

Greet Death – Die In Love (Deathwish)
The usually-depressing Greet Death aim for something a little more uplifting on their most musically-varied album yet.

After years of singing about death, depression, and other downer topics, Greet Death decided to write an album of love songs–their new bio cites love song master Paul McCartney as an inspiration. But before you wonder if they’ve gone full “Love Me Do” on us, this new album is not exactly chipper; it is, after all, called Die In Love. Part of that has to do with co-singer/songwriters Logan Gaval and Harper Boyhtari both losing loved ones in the lead-up to the album, and while Die In Love does spend time processing grief, it’s generally void of the nihilism that defined their earlier work. As Logan told Eli Enis in an interview for Stereogum, “It’s supposed to be uplifting. I’m sure people are gonna misinterpret that and say that it’s another sad record, but it feels different to me.”

Die In Love is also Greet Death’s first since expanding into a five-piece band, and it was recorded before (but written after) Harper came out as a trans woman. The record isn’t about that experience, but Harper said in that same interview that she wonders if some of that past anger came from “not realizing I wanted to be someone else,” and it doesn’t seem like too much of a stretch to suggest that writing a warm, cozy self-love anthem like “Country Girl” might’ve gone hand in hand with finally realizing it. “Country Girl” and the Harper-sung “Emptiness Is Everywhere” in particular have a brightness to them that really does sound uplifting (the full titular line on the latter is “emptiness is everywhere so hold each other close”), and in the context of the album they sound like the sun finally coming out after a rainy day. Other songs have more of the shoegazy haze that Greet Death are best known for, and even though they’re not particularly metallic they are very much heavy shoegaze–some of their guitar tones feel like a bag of bricks. Remarkably, their shoegaze never falls into the trappings of MBV worship or Hum worship or Deftones worship or any of the other commonly-imitated bands that the shoegaze genre has one too many of. The shoegaze songs on Die In Love are some of the most strikingly original in recent memory. And on the other side of the musical spectrum, Die In Love sounds just as impactful when Greet Death unplug entirely, as they do on the gripping acoustic songs “Small Town Cemetery” and “Love Me When You Leave.” For a band that’s always been pretty hard to neatly pin down, this is easily their most musically-varied album yet. It’s also their best.

Die In Love by Greet Death

Vandoliers – Life Behind Bars (Break Maiden/Thirty Tigers)
The Texas country-punk band’s fifth album explores singer Jenni Rose’s journey to coming out as a trans woman, and it’s their most freeing and confident-sounding music yet.

After 10 years, four albums, and countless rowdy live shows that blur the line between punk and country, Dallas’ Vandoliers have made the most important album of their career. Life Behind Bars follows singer Jenni Rose coming out as a trans woman and much of the album explores her journey with gender dysphoria. And it’s not just an important album because of its subject matter, but also because the actual act of writing this album (and re-reading Laura Jane Gace’s Tranny: Confessions of Punk Rock’s Most Infamous Anarchist Sellout) helped Jenni to recognize her dysphoria and come out. As she discussed in a recent Rolling Stone feature, Life Behind Bars producer Ted Hutt (Dropkick Murphys, Flogging Molly) thought Jenni’s first batch of songs for the album were too “shallow,” and he encouraged her to make the songs more personal. In doing so, she realized it was time to come out.

Being more honest with herself and as a songwriter also led to the most freeing, confident-sounding songs Jenni Rose has ever written. Vandoliers’ brand of country-punk shares DNA with anyone from Lucero to Old 97’s to Turnpike Troubadours to Flogging Molly–all of whom they’ve toured with–and on Life Behind Bars, they emerge as the kind of unique force that those bands were on their breakthrough albums. Their “too punk for country, too country for punk” formula has never sounded better, the choruses have never been more triumphant, and their songwriting has never been more powerful. Whether she’s looking inside herself (“Dead Canary”), looking at the world around her (“Bible Belt”), or delivering a deceptively fun honky-tonk singalong (“You Can’t Party With the Lights On,” a collaboration with Joshua Ray Walker and Taylor Hunnicutt), Jenni’s songwriting on this album digs beneath the surface and moves you to your core.

Lorde – Virgin (Universal)
Lorde returns to form (and travels to NYC) on her first album since her iconic “Girl, so confusing” verse.

Lorde stepped out of time with the warm, nostalgic Solar Power in 2021, but she’s been dropped back into the present day with its long-awaited follow-up. Virgin brings her back to the kinetic alt-pop that rocketed her to fame with Pure Heroine and Melodrama. There’s an insistent pulse through its songs, starting with “Hammer” and “What Was That,” both of which quickly build to an urgent beat. It’s the rhythm of the city, and the New Zealander is NYC-bound on Virgin: she’s piercing her ears on Canal St., facing reality in the blue light at Baby’s All Right, and hearing horses running up Prince St. She’s also looking deeply inward, exploring her gender, and struggling with an eating disorder. Virgin‘s distinctive cover image is an X-ray of her pelvis, IUD included, and its lyrics are just as intimate, with spit, ovulation, and a pregnancy test all making appearances. It was a cathartic revelation when she worked it out on the remix with Charli XCX on “Girl, so confusing” last summer, and she’s followed that with her most personal album yet, and a strong pitch for making 2025 Lorde summer. [Amanda Hatfield]

Moving Mountains – Pruning of the Lower Limbs (Wax Bodega)
The post-rocky emo vets pick up where they left off on their first album in 12 years.

It’s been 18 years since Moving Mountains arrived fully formed on their 2007 debut LP Pneuma, a post-rock/emo fusion that picked up where The Appleseed Cast’s early 2000s records left off and found time to dive even deeper into Explosions In The Sky/This Will Destroy You territory. They went through a handful of stylistic (and lineup) changes on the records that followed, before settling into the softer, slowcore-ish emo of their 2013 self-titled album, which was followed by a hibernation that they only came out of for a 2015 split with Prawn and a very select amount of live shows. Now they’re back with their first album in 12 years, recorded with the same lineup as the S/T–vocalist/guitarist Gregory Dunn, drummer Nicholas Pizzolato, bassist Mitchell Lee and guitarist/pianist Joshua Kirby–and it largely picks up where that album and the Prawn split left off. Songs like album opener/lead single “Ghosts” and mid-album highlight “Everyone Is Happy, and Nothing Is Good” are gentle, delicate emo songs that capture the wiser, calmer version of Moving Mountains that emerged on the self-titled, while songs like “Cars” and “Design Ideas” inject the beauty with propulsive rhythms that feel borrowed from The National’s playbook. Penultimate track “Blue” is the kind of folky acoustic song that Greg Dunn has excelled at since Pneuma‘s “Sol Solis,” but lest you think Moving Mountains have mellowed with age, “Snow On Norris Street” is a double-time ripper that could pass for a Title Fight song if not for Greg’s cleaner vocal style. Not unlike the recent post-hiatus comebacks from Superheaven and Balance and Composure, Pruning of the Lower Limbs feels like Moving Mountains knowing exactly who they are and embracing it, free of the pressures and expectations that bands tend to face when they’re on the rise. They only currently have three upcoming shows behind it so they’re not exactly back to the grind; they just wrote a record on their own time and their own terms that they thought was worth sharing with the world, and I think fans will agree that their instincts were right–Pruning of the Lower Limbs is even strong enough that it might win over some new ones.

Pruning of the Lower Limbs by Moving Mountains

Deadguy – Near-Death Travel Services (Relapse)
The NJ metalcore veterans don’t fix what ain’t broke on their first album in 30 years.

In the words of the band themselves, “We made a fucking Deadguy record. This is just what it sounds like when we play together.” Even with 30 years between Near-Death Travel Services and their only other album, 1995’s Fixation on a Co-Worker, I think you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who disagrees. They sound a little more grizzled and world-weary than they did in the ’90s, but otherwise, Near-Death Travel Services sounds exactly like what you think of when you picture Deadguy. That’s not a bad thing; Fixation on a Co-Worker helped invent metalcore as we know it, and pretty much all of the massive metalcore bands that came in their wake owe something to them. With metalcore once again being a dominant force within heavy music, the timing is great for Deadguy to come back and do what they do best. They made the record with Steve Evetts, the same now-iconic producer that helmed their debut (who went on to work with Lifetime, Saves The Day, Hatebreed, The Dillinger Escape Plan, and so many others), and it’s full of classic Deadguy hallmarks–the discordant guitars, the chaotic rhythms, the caustic shouts of Tim Singer. If you’re new to Deadguy and these things still sound familiar, it’s only because of how far and wide their influence has reached.

Near-Death Travel Services by Deadguy

Laura Stevenson – Late Great (Really Records)
Four years and a few major life changes since her excellent self-titled album, Laura Stevenson is back with another quietly gorgeous LP, with assists from Jeff Rosenstock and other friends.

Laura Stevenson has been releasing standout music, both as a solo artist and with the Cans, for over fifteen years now, and her latest album was one of her strongest collections yet. Nearly four years and some major life changes for her (including a breakup and a new career) later, Late Great is a welcome reminder of her quiet power. It’s warm and inviting from the start with “#1,” where she sounds massive as her voice soars over layers of guitar and strings. Just as appealing are the tender and plaintive “Not Us,” and “Short and Sweet,” a classically bare bones folk song that’s fleshed out towards the end. The album’s out on her longtime collaborator and former Bomb the Music Industry! bandmate Jeff Rosenstock’s label, and he also contributed piano, guitar, saxophone, and arrangements. Chris Farren, Kelly Pratt, Mike Brenner, and Kayleigh Goldsworthy are also among those who added instrumentation, and together they all make for one of Laura’s best-sounding albums yet. [Amanda Hatfield]

Late Great by Laura Stevenson

Willi Carlisle – Winged Victory (Signature Sounds)
The Wichita-born singer/songwriter’s new album is both an echo of early/mid 20th century working class protest music and a rallying cry for present day.

Winged Victory is Willi Carlisle’s fourth album but first to be self-produced, and taking over the production duties led to his rawest-sounding album yet. That’s presumably intentional–Winged Victory is a collection of politically and socially aware folk songs in the vein of Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger, artists who never let their messages get obscured by fancy production. There are also a handful of traditional folk songs on the album, including the album-opening rendition of the early 1900s workers anthem “We Have Fed You All For 1000 Years,” as well as other key covers like queer country pioneer Lavender Country’s “Cryin’ These Cocksucking Tears” and British folk rock legend Richard Thompson’s “Beeswing,” and the messages in most of the older songs he picked run parallel to the ones in the new songs he wrote for this LP. It sounds like it could’ve been recorded in 1940, while providing a rallying cry that the world needs right now.

Winged Victory by Willi Carlisle

Isabella Lovestory – Vanity (Giant Music/Lovestory Inc)
The impossible-to-pin-down sophomore album from Isabella Lovestory is a melting pot with reggaeton, Y2K pop, and an experimental edge.

Since her early days, the Honduran-born Isabella Lovestory has been associated with the neoperreo movement–a more alternative/experimental offshoot of reggaeton–but on her sophomore album Vanity, she doesn’t really fit neatly into any boxes. It’s as much reggaeton, neoperreo, and other forms of Latin pop as it is early Britney, Ray of Light-era Madonna, and bass-heavy Southern rap beatwork. Sung in both English and Spanish, it’s a loose concept album that looks at both the empowerment and the darkness that comes with constantly having your own body and image in the public eye. It’s defined by a constant push and pull that’s present in both the subject matter and the melting pot of sounds. It’s like looking into a broken mirror, a reflection of beauty but with a jagged edge.

Citizen – Everybody Is Going To Heaven 10 Year Anniversary Edition (Run For Cover)
Citizen’s caustic, pivotal sophomore album gets an expanded reissue for its 10th anniversary.

Citizen’s 2013 debut LP Youth perfected the melodic hardcore/emo sound that the band had been working towards since their 2011 split with The Fragile Season and it captured the hearts of a new generation of emo kids hungry for a band to call their own, but Citizen had no interest in giving the world Youth Pt. 2. Instead, they followed Youth with Everybody Is Going To Heaven, a caustic post-hardcore LP that pulled from things like Nirvana’s In Utero, Brand New’s Daisy, and The Jesus Lizard. This was the time when so many bands in and around the Run For Cover/Title Fight orbit were starting to embrace shoegaze and dream pop, and Citizen pivoted hard in a much gnarlier direction; Everybody Is Going To Heaven not only sounded nothing like Youth, it also sounded nothing like anything else happening in the scene that Citizen were part of. And, most importantly, it ripped. It turned out these Michigan/Ohio emo kids could make some really nasty stuff. The album was met by a lot of confusion from fans, and ignored by a lot of the people who might’ve actually liked something that sounded similar to The Jesus Lizard, and that’s probably because Citizen understood who they really were and what they were really about before much of their audience did. Everybody Is Going To Heaven put Citizen on a path towards never repeating themselves, and that’s continued across what is now a rock-solid, five-album catalog. Their more recent material is some of their best and most widely-loved, and they couldn’t have gotten to where they are today if they didn’t wipe the slate clean with Everybody Is Going To Heaven.

For its 10th anniversary, Everybody Is Going To Heaven gets an expanded reissue that adds on EIGTH-era rarity “Nail In Your Hand,” a re-imagining of “Heaviside” by rising shoegazer Wisp, and six demos from the album sessions. It’s out digitally now, with vinyl shipping in October, and we’ve got an exclusive “bloodshot red” vinyl variant available in the BV shop, limited to 250.

Everybody is Going to Heaven (10 Year Anniversary Edition) by Citizen

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Read Indie Basement for more new album reviews, including Frankie Cosmos, BC Camplight, Jeanines, and Lightheaded.

Looking for more recent releases? Browse the Notable Releases archive.

Looking for a podcast to listen to? Check out our new podcast BV Weekly.

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