Welcome to Newer Release Roundup™, yet another brand new feature wherein I attempt to collect my thoughts on a few newer albums that I finally got around to listening to. No formal review, no fully solidified impressions, just some rough and dirty early opinions and notes to document and cherish forever. If nothing else, this new writing exercise might actually help me better critically listen to a lot more new stuff instead of most albums only once or twice and then forget about it forever as I move onto something else, only to revisit it only once or twice again five years later. Repeat ad infinitum.

Also, my definition of “newer” may end up being incredibly loose overtime! We’ll just have to see how this goes. For now, I’m sticking with “newer” meaning “anything that came out anytime in 2021”. That’s the ticket!

Dry Cleaning – New Long Leg
(April 2, 2021)

Following the traditions of incredibly dry British post-punk pioneered by guys like Mark E. Smith (The Fall) and carried on by countless bands for the last 40+ years, London’s Dry Cleaning creates a fairly fresh combination of sparse riffs, nonsense stream-of-consciousness lyrics, and the humorously cynical, deadpan talking of Florence Shaw on their debut. Talking, definitely not singing, Shaw didn’t want to join the band if he she had to sing. If you are familiar with comedian Tig Notaro, Shaw’s laconic voice reminds me of her.

Her voice is nothing special, but her elocution compliments the music so well that I don’t think this band would be able to do what they do without her. There’s a mildly incredulous, almost bored quality to her delivery of lines like “If you like a girl, be nice/It’s not rocket science” and “They’ve really changed the pace of the Antiques Roadshow/More antiques, more price reveals/Less background information/The reason the price reveals were so good/Was because we had to wait for them“. The mundane non-sequiturs are fascinating. I don’t even know what she’s talking about most of the time, but I’m nevertheless hooked! Mining the absurdity of everyday life can yield 100 more albums of material easily, if Dry Cleaning can keep this up then I don’t see any reason why future albums can’t maintain this consistency. I look forward to more from this band.

Early Verdict:

The Anchoress – The Art of Losing
(March 12, 2021)

Not gonna lie, I was mainly drawn into this album by its cover. I can’t tell if Welsh singer-songwriter Catherine Anne Davies is sucking up pages like a vacuum or regurgitating them into the book. The title itself, The Art of Losing must reference the streak of bad luck Davies has been dealing with in the last few years. Miscarriages, her father’s death, yeah, not fun. Prepare for 53 minutes of sadness!

In contrast, music itself straddles the line between melancholy and uplifting. Solemn, pretty piano and violin makes up most of the instrumental accompaniment to Davies’ incredible voice. The songs are vignettes of self-therapy. The pep-talk of “Let It Hurt” (“Stop bargaining with yourself and let it hurt some, let it hurt some/…/Stop arguing with yourself and let it hurt some, let it hurt some“) shows her allowing herself to be human and feel her feelings. The harrowing “5AM” recounts, all too detailed, a trifecta of painful situations (in oder, per verse, it’s domestic abuse, rape, and a miscarriage) with the repeated refrain “Red, red blood is dripping on the carpet/Red, red blood is dripping and I can’t sleep” tying them together while the music remains eerily calm throughout; especially unsettling with the occasional minor key shifts. Even the instrumental “All Shall Be Well” betrays a sense of optimism.

However, strictly musically speaking, my hangup is the super, super, super, SUPER clean production. It has the ultra-crisp sheen of a Christmas cash-grab album, which I find slightly off-putting and it’s preventing me from willingly coming back to fully absorb these very beautiful melodies. For now, this is going to be a tough one to revisit, but I’m not going to give up on it yet. There’s incredible talent here, and I admire Davies’ bravery to pen some material that must be terrible to relive.

Early Verdict:

Black Country, New Road – For the first time
(February 5, 2021)

An absolutely riveting record! The young London septet made one of the most electrifying debuts that I’ve heard in a long time. This band right here reminds me why I love music so much.

For the first time sees Black Country, New Road taking the torch passed from pre-grunge post-hardcore acts like Slint (obviously), Unwound, and Shellac, and adds the dramatic vocal stylings of Nick Cave, the tense, powerful, apocalyptic progression of the ’10s-era Swans albums, and a nice, loud saxophone. The result is something simultaneously engrossing, challenging, dramatic, even accessible. Lyrically, BCNR takes the mundane and twists it into something oppressive and suffocating (“Mother is juicing watermelons on the breakfast island/And with frail hands she grips the NutriBullet/And the bite of its blades reminds me/Of a future that I am in no way part of“). Curious, yet oddly relatable? I’m, of course, a rotten millennial, but is this a glimpse what middle-class Generation Z feels like in the world? It’s simply fascinating.

A special mention goes to “Science Fair”, already a contender for my favorite track of the year and could hold its own in a competition against ANY recent great Swans track. This song is the soundtrack to anxiety. It must be heard to be believed. Do yourself a favor run, don’t walk, to this link and listen to it!

Early Verdict: