Nick Syrett, a neo-classical musician originally from the United Kingdom, has presented a superbly touching album named Refuge. The album includes twelve magnificent, mellifluous pieces that touch upon the topic of the refugees.
Talking about the song, Syrett stated: “During the recording of Refuge, I often found my mind drawn to refugees in the Middle East, who were being forced from their homes and experiencing terrible suffering. My prayer is that these simple songs would touch hearts, restore souls, and help many to find healing and peace.”
Cabaret Voltaire have announced their first studio album in 26 years. Titled Shadow of Fear, the follow-up to 1994’s The Conversation comes out November 20 via Mute and marks the project’s first release with Richard H. Kirk as the sole member of the group. Accompanying the announcement, Kirk has also unveiled the first single from the album, ‘Vasto’. Check it out below, and scroll down for the album’s cover artwork and tracklist.
“The mission statement from the off was no nostalgia,” Kirk said in a statement. “Normal rules do not apply. Something for the 21st Century. No old material.”
He added: “The album was finished just as all the weirdness was starting to kick in. Shadow Of Fear feels like a strangely appropriate title. The current situation didn’t have much of an influence on what I was doing — all the vocal content was already in place before the panic set in — but maybe due to my nature of being a bit paranoid there are hints in there about stuff going a bit weird and capturing the current state of affairs.”
Shadow of Fear Cover Artwork:
Shadow of Fear Tracklist:
1. Be Free
2. The Power (Of Their Knowledge)
3. Night Of The Jackal
4. Microscopic Flesh Fragment
5. Papa Nine Zero Delta United
6. Universal Energy
7. Vasto
8. What’s Goin’ On
Deftones have revealed the details of their upcoming album, Ohms. The follow-up to 2016’s Gore is out September 25 via Reprise. In addition to the announcement, a 30-second snippet of the title track is also available to hear via Apple Music, while the first single will be unveiled tomorrow (August 21).
As Brooklyn Vegan notes, the Apple Music listing for the album recently went up, revealing the tracklist, cover artwork, and release date. Ohms was recorded with producer Terry Date, who has previously collaborated with the band on multiple albums, including White Pony. As the band have issued no official announcement, it is possible that the information went up a bit too early by accident, but until then, you can check out those details below.
Ohms Cover Artwork:
Ohms Tracklist:
1. Genesis
2. Ceremony
3. Urantia
4. Errorr
5. The Spell Of Mathematics
6. Pompeji
7. This Link Is Dead
8. Radiant City
9. Headless
10. Ohms
London Grammar, the British trio led by singer Hannah Reid, have returned with their first new song in three years, ‘Baby It’s You’. The single, which was teased earlier this week with an Instagram post and the caption “nothing else matters”, was co-produced by the band and George FitzGerald. Take a listen below.
London Grammar’s last album, Truth Is A Beautiful Thing, was released in 2017. Last year, they collaborated with Australian producer Flume on his single ‘Let You Know’.
Nine albums into their career, alt-rock titans Biffy Clyro have established themselves as one of those acts constantly straddling the line between the commercial sound that catapulted them to fame and the experimental leanings of their earlier work. It’s a familiar story, but you can probably count the bands that have successfully carried on that balancing act for so long on the fingers of a single hand. Their 2016 LP Ellipsis was a mostly uninspired attempt at honing in their knack for stadium-sized riffs and radio-friendly hooks, so it only makes sense that the Scottish rockers had to bring back their more ambitious tendencies for the genre-bending soundtrack for Balance, Not Symmetry last year.
Though Biffy Clyro have nothing to prove at this point – most fans already know each release will land somewhere on the mainstream-experimental rock continuum, and adjust their expectations accordingly – but their new album, A Celebration of Endings, is one of those out-sized, apocalyptic efforts that has unintentionally taken on new resonance in the wake of, well, everything. An album largely about witnessing the end of the world as we know it, it might not usher in a wave of new fans, but it might spark the curiosity of listeners who can, now more than ever, relate to the creeping feelings of dread that prevade it. “Times are changing/ And everybody knows,” singer Simon Neil declares on ‘Worst Type of Best Possible’, while on ‘Weird Leisure’ he makes a pertinent observation: “We’re fighting an ugly war/ And it’s no good to freak out.”
If we weren’t living in the year 2020, though, the fact that the way the album is framed is really just a way to up the momentum might have come off as a little more obvious. A Celebration of Endings is, for the most part, a record about the dissolution of a relationship that’s been magnified to cataclysmic proportions, and not always a very effective one at that. Neil’s most obnoxious impulses come through on the track ‘End Of’, in which he bafflingly wails: “I’ll tell you right now/ I woulda fucking died for you/ You wouldn’t know how/ To be a friend.” But the lyrics aren’t usually the main reason one listens to a Biffy Clyro song, and what the album lacks in depth, it makes up for with some of the band’s most exhilarating compositions. In fact, few tracks here are as musically riveting as ‘End Of’, with its thunderous riffs, pummelling bass, and all-around great performances.
Also worth highlighting is the rapturous ‘Worst Type of Best Possible’, which opens with a gnarly riff that grows into one of the more surprisingly decent cleaner-sounding songs on the album, while ‘Weird Leisure’ retains its fiery energy throughout. But for almost every impressive feat the band manage to pull off, like the grand theatrics of ‘The Champ’, there’s a disappointingly predictable track that does little more than stick to modern rock’s most tired tropes. ‘Space’ is the biggest offender here, a painfully saccharine ballad with lines like “We tried to conceal the scars we wore/ ‘Cause we couldn’t show what we couldn’t show”; ‘Instant History’ also relies too heavily on melodrama with little to no substance. Still, listening to the gutsy lyrics on the otherwise mundane ‘Opaque’ or the epic prog-rock closer ‘Cop Syrup’, it’s clear that Biffy Clyro are still far from a boilerplate alt-rock act, and those ambitions are mostly put to good use on their latest outing.
Moses Sumney has shared his rendition of Ariana Grande‘s hit single ‘thank u, next’, from her 2019 album of the same name. Sumney’s slowed-down cover is available exclusively via Amazon Music. Check it out below.
Phoenix have shared a new song titled ‘Identical’. It’s taken from the soundtrack to Sofia Coppola’s upcoming movie On the Rocks, starring Bill Murray, Rashida Jones, and Marlon Wayans. It arrives with a video directed by Roman Coppola and dedicated to the the late Philippe Zdar. Check it out below.
Phoenix’s score for On the Rocks will mark their fifth film collaboration with Coppola, whose husband is Phoenix leader Thomas Mars. ‘Identical’ is also the first new music from the band since 2017’s Ti Amo. In a new interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe, Mars discussed working on the follow-up to that album: “There’s no coherence and it’s a little bit like our first record, maybe, United, which had songs that would explore heavy metal and then country music. And then this is the same sort of weird Frankenstein of an album,” he said.
Ben Gibbard performed two songs during a livestream concert for the 2020 Democratic National Convention. He played the Death Cab for a Cutie track ‘Northern Lights’ as well ‘Such Great Heights’, the hit song from his indie pop project The Postal Service, which he of course dedicated to the USPS. Check out his performance below.
“I think more than any election in my lifetime, this one is of paramount importance. And one of the many institutions outside of democracy that is very core that is under fire is that of the United States Postal Service,” Gibbard said during the livestream. “For those who are not aware, I was in a band called the Postal Service. We put out a record in 2003 and we made this music by sending CDs back and forth to each other … I think in the midst of this global pandemic, nothing is more important than to being able to vote safely and securely and vote by mail has shown to be that over and over and over again.”
As Stereogum notes, the US Postal Service originally sent a cease and desist notice to the band, but eventually agreed to give them free license to use the name in exchange for promoting them. The DNC also hosted performances from Billie Eilish, Maggie Rogers, Leon Bridges, Stephen Stills, Billy Porter, and John Legend.
Billie Eilish gave her latest single ‘my future’ its live debut while performing at the 2020 Democratic National Convention. Check out her performance below.
In addition to performing her new song alongside her brother, Finneas, Eilish also encouraged her fans to vote and endorsed Joe Biden. “You don’t need me to tell you things are a mess. Donald Trump is destroying our country and everything we care about,” she said. “We need leaders who will solve problems like climate change and COVID, not deny them. Leaders who will fight against systemic racism and inequality. And that starts by voting for someone who understands how much is at stake. Someone who’s building a team that shares our values. It starts with voting against Donald Trump and for Joe Biden.”
“Silence is not an option, and we cannot sit this one out,” she concluded. “We all have to vote like our lives and the world depend on it because they do. The only way to be certain of the future is to make it ourselves. Please register, please vote.”
‘my future’ marks Eilish’s second new song of 2020, following her theme song for the James Bond film No Time to Die. Earlier this week, Maggie Rogers, Leon Bridges, Stephen Stills, Billy Porter, and John Legend all performed at the DNC.
When reviewing A. G. Cook‘s 49-track LP 7G, we said that it’s “just a hint a of what’s to come” – just a couple of days later, the PC Music founder has announced yet another album. Titled Apple, it’s comprised of 10 tracks and comes out September 18 via PC Music. Cook has also shared a new song from the album called ‘Oh Yeah’ alongside a self-directed music video featuring an adorable French bulldog. Check it out below, and scroll down for the album’s cover artwork and tracklist.
“The notion of pure, classic songwriting is one of the core aspects of the album and ‘Oh Yeah’ is maybe my most direct attempt,” Cook said in a statement. “I was really inspired by Shania Twain and how her clean, slinky vocals tell you as much about the song as her lyrics. The song itself—like most pop music—is really about confidence & escapism, and how bittersweet those things can feel.”
He added: “Apple is my own take on Personal Computer Music. I’ve always been interested in the blurred line between bedroom and professional studio production and at what point a personality either gets created or accidentally takes shape. For me, there’s a great sense of freedom in combining something slick with something naive reality where anything could happen.”
