Stolen Jars have announced their next album: I Won’t Let Me Down is set to drop on August 19. Today’s announcement comes with the release of the new song ‘Reality TV’, which follows the singles early ‘Adeline’, ‘Somewhere Else’, and ‘Won’t Stay Gone Forever’. Check out its accompanying video, directed by Haoyan of America, below.
I Won’t Let Me Down, the follow-up to 2019’s A Reminder, was co-produced and mixed by Hop Along’s Joe Reinhart. It features contributions from Frankie Cosmos’ Greta Kline.
I Won’t Let Me Down Cover Artwork:
I Won’t Let Me Down Tracklist:
1. Reality TV
2. Adeline
3. Austin
4. Won’t Stay Gone Forever
5. Somewhere Else
6. In The Bad Times
7. South
8. Smoke In The House
9. Run It Wild
The Walking Dead has proved to be a massively successful franchise, with the TV series by AMC Studios bringing the zombie apocalypse theme to a global audience. This level of success has led to numerous spin-offs being created but will any of them prove to be as popular as the original?
The Walking Dead Slots
One example of how The Walking Dead has reached other parts of the entertainment industry comes from the world of casino slots. The idea is that players can try simple games of chance based on virtually any type of theme, so a hugely popular TV series like this is an obvious choice for a slot developer looking for inspiration and a topic that will attract a lot of players.
When playing online slots, we can see two games based on this franchise, one called The Walking Dead and the other with the name of The Walking Dead Cash Collect. Both feature symbols showing the images of the show’s main characters and the same basic gameplay, but with varying features that can be triggered as you play.
The fact that there are two slots on this theme suggests that the first one was a success. However, this is an extremely diverse and competitive market where many themes jostle for the attention of players. Having said that, it seems entirely possible that Playtech brings out a third Walking Dead slot with some new features at some point.
Tales of the Walking Dead
This spin-off series began in 2022 as the fourth TV series in the overall franchise. Focusing on a group of characters that combines some existing favourites with newcomers, the first set of six episodes on AMC+ was well received although critics pointed out that the quality varied between episodes.
It’s been successful enough that AMC has already confirmed that a second series has been ordered, with the proposed title of More Tales from the TWDU. This series seems set to continue with the format of six episodes that cover a range of new and existing characters. Each episode will again be completely self-contained and could bring back some characters who died in the original series.
Scott M. Gimple is the chief creative officer for this spin-off and he said that since it’s an anthology show there was no need for the first season to end with a cliffhanger. This is just one of several TV shows have been created to follow on from the original premise, with The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon and The Walking Dead: Dead City among the others, but the signs are that it could be one of the most successful.
Back to the Original?
Is there any chance that the original series is brought back to life for a 12th season? The 11th season of the original series was said to be the last. Released in 24 episodes over 2021 and 2022, it was praised for drawing the saga to a close with a satisfactory conclusion that seems to have completely killed off any chance of a 12th season.
All 177 episodes are on streaming services now but the show has definitely been cancelled, with apparently no hope of a 12th series in the future. However, while fans may be disappointed with this news, it could act as a way of boosting the public’s appetite for the different spin-offs that promise to keep the franchise alive and gain new fans for the foreseeable future.
Gus Dapperton has reunited BENEE on the new single ‘Don’t Let Me Down’, which will appear on his debut studio album, HENGE. It marks their first collaboration since the 2020 viral hit ‘Supalonely’. Check out a video for it below.
HENGE will be released on July 7 via Warner. ‘Don’t Let Me Down’ follows Dapperton’s previously unveiled tracks ‘Horizons’ and ‘Wet Cement’.
Sparks have released ‘Veronica Lake’, the latest single from their forthcoming album The Girl Is Crying in Her Latte. It follows the previously shared title track, which came with a music video starring Cate Blanchett. Listen to ‘Veronica Lake’ below.
The Girl Is Crying in Her Latte is set to arrive on May 26 via Island.
Brandy Clark has released a new single called ‘She Smoked in the House’. It’s the latest preview of their forthcoming self-titled album, which was produced by Brandi Carlile. Take a listen below.
“I was driving around listening to a lot of Merle Haggard. I got stuck on ‘Are the Good Times Really Over for Good’ for weeks,” Clark reflected in a statement. “That song really makes me think of my grandparents and that generation. I just couldn’t get away from it. So I started on a song called ‘They Smoked in the House,’ but I just couldn’t connect with it in the way that I needed to. I remembered someone once telling me that to be general, you must be specific and so I pivoted and started working on ‘SHE Smoked in the House.’ The ‘SHE’ is my grandma Ruth. To this day, my grandma Ruth is my favorite character to ever walk the planet. Looking back, I wrote this song because I was missing her and the things that she valued in life. I never thought that it would ever be on a record. It was for me….but now it’s for you, too.”
“This album is a return home to me in many ways,” Clark added. “Musically it’s the rawest I’ve been since 12 Stories and maybe even rawer. When Brandi and I sat down and talked about working together, one thing that really intrigued me was her saying ‘I see it as your return to the northwest.’ (Since the two of us are both from Washington state). That comment inspired so much for me. It took me back to where and how I grew up. ‘Northwest’ and ‘She Smoked In The House’ were both a result of that early conversation. Working with another recording artist on this project was such a gift that I didn’t even know I needed and changed the way I want to write songs and make records moving forward. My hope is that anyone who hears this album will feel the heart that I put into every note of it.”
Brandy Clark is set for release on May 19 via Warner Records.
Leith Ross has released a new single, ‘Music Box’, which will appear on their upcoming debut LP To Learn – out May 19 via Republic/Polydor Records. It follows previous offerings ‘Guts’ and ‘(You) on My Arm’. Check it out below.
“‘Music Box’ is my only imaginary song so far, it’s not based on anything true, other than whatever is buried deep in my subconscious,” Ross explained in a press release. “Kind of like dreams, I guess, which is exactly what this song is trying to emulate. It’s a spooky little song about a made up adventure. An ode to daydreaming and the fantastical!”
Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter Blue Mena has released a new single, ‘Twisted Time’. It’s taken from their forthcoming debut album, Multi Adolescence, which includes the previously shared singles ‘Knocked Out’, ‘Shut the Door’, ‘Phone Song’, and ‘Indigo’. Listen to ‘Twisted Time’ below.
“I started this track in the summer of 2020 while I was playing with a sample of ‘Keeping Up’ by Arthur Russell and put that twangy guitar riff on top,” Mena explained in a statement. “I had been thinking a lot about how time moves differently when you’re queer, and wanted to write a whole song about it (ended up writing a whole album about it).” They continued:
Months later, I re-recorded the cellos and brought the track to fellow Arthur Russell-devotee Adam Bainbridge aka Kindness, who helped me get the drums to sit right. Then Bryn Bliska laid down some genius keys and synths. I loved it at the time, but felt like it sounded too much like a “demo” and let the track sit on my computer for over a year until I was wrapping up the album, found it in the demo graveyard, and was like damn I still love this. I went into the studio that night and finished it, and it ended up being my favorite song on the album and was the last one to make it on the tracklist. Very fitting that this song had such a long and non-linear life!
Kae Tempest has released a new track, ‘Love Harder’, which is lifted from their Nice Idea EP, a Record Store Day exclusive produced by Dan Carey. Take a listen below.
Speaking about the song, Tempest said in a statement: “When it burns brighter, a lover like me learns to be a fighter. When it gets darker, a fighter like me learns to love harder. A joyful song from my new EP, I’ve loved playing this live on tour over the last few months. The EP is a little slice of life, from where I’m at now. Hope you feel it.”
Back in February, Tempest released Nice Idea‘s title track. Their most recent LP, The Line Is a Curve, came out last year.
Bloc Party have released a new single called ‘High Life’. Check it out below.
“I wanted ‘High Life’ to sound like falling in love again, the start of a new love intertwining, cemented by nights of abandon and stolen moments of intimacy,” frontman Kele Okereke explained in a statement. “I really wanted it to feel like a celebration.”
Bloc Party released Alpha Games, their first album in six years, a year ago. Just last month, Kele put out his latest solo LP, The Flames pt. 2.
Everything But the Girl are back with Fuse, their first studio album in 24 years. The record was preceded by the singles ‘Nothing Left to Lose’, ‘Caution to the Wind’, ‘Run a Red Light’, and ‘No One Knows We’re Dancing’. “Ironically the finished sound of the new album was the last thing on our mind when we started in March 2021,” Tracey Thorn explained in press materials. “Of course, we were aware of the pressures of such a long-awaited comeback, so we tried to begin instead in a spirit of open-minded playfulness, uncertain of the direction, receptive to invention’. Ben Watt added: “It was exciting. A natural dynamism developed. We spoke in short-hand, and little looks, and co-wrote instinctively. It became more than the sum of our two selves. It just became Everything But the Girl on its own.” Read our review of Fuse.
Infinite Spring is the debut album by superviolet, the new project of former Sidekicks leader Steve Ciolek. Out now via Lame-O Records, the LP was previewed by the singles ‘Big Songbirds Don’t Cry’, ‘Locket’, and ‘Overrater’. “[I was] just trying to push myself a little further out of my comfort zone and look a little more inward and think about what’s going on in my life,” Ciolek said of his songwriting process in our Artist Spotlight interview. “And around that time, I was falling in love and involved in a more committed relationship. That has all these beautiful things you can think about for days and just try to wrap your mind around it, but you can’t, so then you write a song about it.”
Lael Neale has followed up 2021’s Acquainted With Night with a new LP, Star Eaters Delight, via Sub Pop. Featuring the singles ‘I Am the River’, ‘In Verona’, ‘Faster Than the Medicine’, ‘Must Be Tears’, the album finds the singer-songwriter continuing her collaboration with producer Guy Blakeslee. “Acquainted with Night (recorded in 2019, and released in 2021), was a focusing inward amidst the loud and bright Los Angeles surrounding me,” Neale reflected in a statement. “It was an attempt to create spaciousness and quiet reverie within. When I moved back to the farm, I found that the unbroken silences compelled me to break them with sound. This album is more external. It is a reaching back out to the world, wanting to feel connected, to wake up, to come together again.”
Esther Rose has released a new album, Safe to Run, via her new label home, New West Records. Following 2021’s How Many Times, the 11-track LP was produced by Ross Farbe and features contributions from Lyle Werner, Hurray for the Riff Raff’s Alynda Segarra, New Orleans band Silver Synthetic, and The Deslondes’ Cameron Snyder. “My challenge every time I picked up the pen was: not another heartbreak song, look around you,” Rose explained in press materials. “Writing from depths never explored and feeling sometimes like I was losing my mind, a softness unfurled. I’ve moved out of a chaotic, transitional place. I’m not running anymore. This album feels different to me than everything I’ve made before it. But who knows? I’ve traded hurricanes for wildfires.”
Bell Witch, Future’s Shadow Part 1: The Clandestine Gate
Bell Witch have dropped Future’s Shadow Part 1: The Clandestine Gate, their first album since 2017’s Mirror Reaper. Announced earlier this week, the LP – a single 83-minute composition – is the first chapter in a planned triptych of records. “Eventually, the end of the last album will be looped around to the first to make a circle,” the band’s Dylan Desmond explained in a press release. “It can be continuously looped, like a day cycle. This would be dawn. The next one would be noon. The following one would be sundown, with dawn and sundown both having something of night.”
The Austin, Texan outfit Portrayal of Guilt have returned with their latest album, Devil Music, out now via Run for Cover. The follow-up to 2021’s CHRISTF**KER includes five new original songs on side A, while side two is made up of orchestral versions of those tracks, which were previewed in an Emmanuella Zachariou-directed short film that accompanied the album’s announcement. The band laid down the record in two separate sessions in early 2022.
Other albums out today:
ALL HANDS_MAKE LIGHT, Darling The Dawn; Tygapaw, love has never been a popular movement.; Silver Moth, Black Bay; Agust D, D-DAY; YoungBoy Never Broke Again, Don’t Try This at Home; Rodrigo y Gabriela, In Between Thoughts…A New World; Rose City Band, Garden Party; Nourished By Time, Erotic Probiotic 2; Nathan Connolly, The Strange Order of Things; Tiësto, Drive; Baba Ali, Laugh Like a Bomb; JAIN, The Fool; Alfa Mist, Variables; Chantal Michelle, Broken to Echoes.
Everything But the Girl are back with 
Infinite Spring
Lael Neale has followed up 2021’s Acquainted With Night with a new LP, 
Esther Rose has released a new album, 
Bell Witch have dropped 
The Austin, Texan outfit 