August 2016 reviews

Highly recommended: Anchorsong, Deerhoof, Anderson.Paak, Glauco Venier

Highly recommended, reviewed earlier: TUNS

Well worth your while: Sharon Jones, The Julie Ruin, The Magic, Nao

As always, these reviews ran in the Waterloo Record.

Streaming is great for sample purposes, but please find a way to support your favourite artists financially.

Anchorsong – Ceremonial (Caroline)

Anchorsong is the name of the last track on Bjork’s Debut album. Now it’s also the name of a Japanese artist, Masaaki Yoshida, whose eclectic palette would have been right at home on that 1993 record. Call-and-response melodic percussion lines, Spaghetti Western guitar, bells and gamelans that could have been lifted from Pantha du Prince, plaintive strings, kalimbas—at times it sounds like a Moby remix of early Bjork, at others a more worldly Tycho. But mostly it sounds like a curious traveller in search of beauty, propelled forth by insistent rhythms that never let the listener drift off, asleep at the wheel. (Aug. 4)

Stream: "Eve," "Mother," “Butterflies”

Bat for Lashes – The Bride (Warner)

Ah! The Bride. It’s a concept album, no? A peek inside the narrative of a marriage, either an epic love story of perseverance or a psychological torture story, right? The first song is a lovely lullaby about, presumably, engagement, called “I Do.” But from there we go right into “Joe’s Dream,” with the opening line: “There's a tear in my lover's eyes / He's at my window, it's a gloomy night.” Uh-oh! What are we in for? The next track, “In God’s House,” makes it clear: she’s been stranded at the altar, her fiancée dead, the bride-to-be denied even the status of widowhood. For the rest of the album, she goes “Honeymooning Alone,” driving along the seaside, mourning the life that could have been.

Natasha Khan spent two years working on The Bride, both the album and what will be an accompanying film. The British songwriter recorded in rural New York state, and the resulting sound is a combination of the sea-swept gothica of PJ Harvey and David Lynchian smalltown-U.S.A. weirdness. Yet Khan is more conventional than many of her outré influences; there’s also a lot of Sarah McLachlan in here—though the side of that songwriter that we haven’t seen in a very, very long time.

Part of Khan’s charm is her ability to sound so haunting and creepy and yet simultaneously alluring; it’s a lot sexier than a record about a dead lover should probably be. (Aug. 4)

Stream: “Joe’s Dream,” “In God’s House,” “Sunday Love”

Deerhoof – The Magic (Polyvinyl)

It’s been a weird summer. And when the going gets really weird, no other rock band makes more sense than Deerhoof. The California quartet’s delightfully playful absurdism—executed with technical precision, lyrical naivete, and a sonic mashup of Zappa, punk rock and the weirdest parts of the Beatles—were a welcome tonic to soundtrack the Bush years. Deerhoof is always at the very least interesting, but every so often their oddball inventiveness coalesces into a top-to-bottom fantastic album. This is one of those albums. Considering their discography now stretches back almost 20 years, entry points can be hard to find for the uninitiated. So start here. And don’t miss them when they swing back this way again. (Aug. 11)

Stream: “Kate Mania!” “Life is Suffering,” “Plastic Thrills”

Hannah Georgas – For Evelyn (Dine Alone)

Mining the same vibe as Bat for Lashes is Vancouver/Toronto singer Hannah Georgas, whose third album is dedicated to her 98-year-old grandmother—for once, it seems, an artist celebrating someone still alive rather than writing an album-long obituary (see also: The Acorn’s Glory Hope Mountain or the Fiery Furnaces’ Rehearsing My Choir—which they recorded with their grandmother). Georgas doesn’t do so with a plunky ukulele or sad piano ballads (though there is one or two of those): she dives right into the synths found in the studio of producer Graham Walsh (Holy F--k, Operators) and comes out with a hot-blooded new wave record that trumps anything in her promising discography so far. (Aug. 4)

Stream: “Don’t Go,” “Evelyn,” “Naked Beaches”

Sharon Jones – Miss Sharon Jones OST (Daptone)

Sharon Jones was 40 years old when she first had her name listed as lead vocalist on a recording. That was in 1996. She’d sung live with plenty of bands and recorded backup vocals, but paid her bills as a corrections officer and lived with her mother. In the recent documentary Miss Sharon Jones, and in the one new track on its soundtrack (“I’m Still Here”), she says she was always told she was “too fat, too short, too black, too old,” to front her own band—an assertion that is patently ridiculous on every imaginable level. This woman is Otis Redding and Tina Turner reincarnate. If this woman is not a rock star, then that term might as well not exist.

Jones got her break by falling in with a group of sympathetic musicians in New York who would come to be the core of Daptone records—members of Afrobeat revivalists Antibalas and ’70s jazz-funk enthusiasts the Sugarman 3, among others. There were many excellent acts on Daptone, but all of them were instrumental. Sharon Jones quickly became the star of the show. As her profile rose, so did that of her band, the Dap-Kings, who were hired to record with everyone from Amy Winehouse (that’s them on “Rehab”) to David Byrne to Michael Bublé to Bruno Mars (that’s them on “Uptown Funk”).

Just as Jones was about to release her fifth and easily her best album, 2014’s Give the People What They Want, Jones was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. She postponed the album while she underwent treatment, but came back to triumph and tour—only to have the cancer reappear just as this documentary, directed by Oscar winner Barbara Kopple (Harlan County USA, Shut Up and Sing) debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival last fall. Instead of retreating during this round of treatment, she’s been on the road ever since, fighting as strong as she can. If you thought Gord Downie was brave (which he is), you should witness Sharon Jones in action (check out this April 2016 performance for KEXP in Seattle).

All of which is even more of a reason to celebrate the soundtrack to that documentary, which compiles some of the best tracks of Jones’s 14-year discography. The power of her voice and her band often overshadowed the songs, but that’s not the case here: this is all top-shelf material. The uber fan could quibble about omitting her covers of Janet Jackson or Woody Guthrie or Shuggie Otis, but as a sampling of her five albums and more, this is hard to top—especially with the addition of hard-hitting early singles like “Genuine.” (Aug. 18)

The Julie Ruin – Hit Reset (Hardly Art)

Kathleen Hanna has a lot of baggage. A principal architect of the riot grrrl movement of the ’90s with her band Bikini Girl, a key member of political electropop band Le Tigre in the 2000s, Lyme disease victim, subject of the acclaimed 2013 documentary The Punk Singer: anytime she steps back into the public eye with new music, it’s a major countercultural event. 

Not that she lets that get to her. After her reinvention with the new band The Julie Ruin, whose 2013 album Run Fast was full of themes of perseverance, age and triumphing over adversity, here she sounds more than happy to just make a fun rock’n’roll record with her new pals—one steeped in the bubblegum melodies and enthusiastic punk party music she loves (lots! of! handclaps!), with politics taking a backseat or expressed in considerably more subtle fashion than she’s known for. That said, she can still skewer like few others, like when she lambastes a gushing yet shallow male fan in “Mr. So and So,” who boasts, “I’ll show your autograph to my women’s studies class!”

Is this one of Hanna’s better records? Not really. But baggage be damned. The 47-year-old singer has nothing to prove to anyone, and sounds like she’s having the time of her life. (Aug. 11)

Stream: "Hit Reset," "I Decide," “Rather Not”

The Magic – Night Falling (Hailstone Entertainment)

What a Magical summer it is. There’s the aforementioned Deerhoof album, a new album by the international Toronto pop-reggae sensation Magic!, and now a new album from the Guelph band from whom the “Rude” band stole a name: Evan and Geordie Gordon, who perform and record as The Magic. This Magic makes blue-eyed synth soul with an ’80s bent, with Evan serving as the studio wizard and Geordie the cool-cucumber crooner who slips between his seductive lower range and a falsetto that keeps getting better with age. (He’s now 30, but keen audiences will remember him as a teenager in the Barmitzvah Brothers 15 years ago.) Night Falling was four years in the making, scheduled during time off from the brother’s duties as touring members of Islands. Once a full band, it’s now a duo, but they don’t sacrifice any side of their lush sound, which has nods to Sade, Hall & Oates, Haim and Blood Orange—and you’d never guess it’s a bedroom recording. (Aug. 11)

Stream: “If I Were You,” “Over and Over,” “Season’s Crown”

Whole album here.

Nao – For All We Know (Sony)

Last year, this British R&B singer dropped an EP with the slinky summer bass line on “Inhale Exhale,” announcing yet another bright new light in what is turning out to be a golden era in R&B. That track reappears on her major label debut, as it should, but Nao proves she’s certainly no one-trick pony. Her voice might be girlish in pitch, but there is a command and confidence here that sounds anything but naïve. There are many times here, notably “Bad Blood” (no, not a Taylor Swift cover) she feels like the missing link between Prince and Kate Bush (who, of course, were mutual fans and collaborators). Or, in modern terms, she sits somewhere between FKA Twigs and Miguel. Nao herself calls her music “wonky funk.” Either way, she’s staked out a claim in a competitive field this year. (Aug. 25)

Stream: “Inhale Exhale,” “Adore You,” “Fool to Love”

Anderson.Paak – Malibu (O.B.E.)

While R&B fans spent the first half of 2016 fretting about the arrival of a new Frank Ocean album, this California artist quietly dropped this minor masterpiece in the dead of January. He was the talk of the SXSW festival in March, appeared on one of the best tracks on Kaytranada’s Polaris Music Prize-shortlisted 99.9% in May, and sold out the Phoenix in Toronto in June. Why? Because Malibu is second only to Beyoncé’s Lemonade as a high-water mark for R&B in the last year. 

Paak is no spring chicken. He’s 30 years old, with experience as a professional drummer (for an American Idol contestant) and a Dr. Dre protégé (with several guest appearances on Dre’s comeback, Compton). He was raised on old soul music and California G-funk and his world was turned upside down by Outkast. His first gigs were in a Baptist congregation. He sings with a delicious rasp not dissimilar to Kendrick Lamar’s timbre as a rapper, with layered harmonies akin to D’Angelo and a psychedelic palette worthy of Miguel; on the straight-up funk of “Come Down,” he channels “Payback”-era James Brown. He’s a father and husband who was raised in a violent household and is determined to find the positivity in life. You can hear all of that life experience in Malibu, which announces the arrival of a fully formed artist ready to seize the crown. As an independent artist, he doesn’t have marketing hype behind him, but an album this good doesn’t need it. The music does all the talking. (Aug. 11)

Anderson.Paak is playing the Manifesto festival in Toronto on Sept. 17, on a dream bill with Kaytranada and Daniel Caesar, at Echo Beach. 

Stream: “Come Down,” “Heart Don’t Stand a Chance,” “Am I Wrong” feat. Schoolboy Q

Fatima al Qadiri – Brute (Hyperdub)

"You are no longer peacefully assembled," are the first words you hear on Qadiri’s second album. They’re sampled from a police officer at the 2015 protests in Ferguson, Missouri, which helped kick off the Black Lives Matter movement in the States. Qadiri’s electronic soundscapes are meant to evoke a dystopia—not a fantastical one, but one very much rooted in current realities. As an instrumental artist, she works to evoke these themes with groaning synths that sound like sorrowful choirs, with beats that sound disorienting and dazzling, with eerie melodies that are just waiting for the right sci-fi director to use them in film—though it would be Qadiri doing that director a favour, not the other way around.  The cover art, by Josh Kline, depicts a Teletubby-like humanoid in riot gear, looking like it just woke up to this strange new world with no idea what role it might play. Qadiri doesn’t have answers, just questions, colours, hues. That’s all she needs. (Aug. 4)

Stream: “Blood Moon,” “Oubliette,” “Power” 

Glauco Venier – Miniatures: Music for Piano and Percussion (ECM)

Pianists like Nils Frahm, 33, and Chilly Gonzales, 44, get a lot of attention for reinvigorating the art of neo-classical solo piano, in part because of their age and associated record labels and artists. More power to them, especially if they help open ears to this solo recording by 53-year-old Italian pianist Glauco Venier. Venier is a Berklee-trained jazz player who has primarily performed in a trio format. Here, he was hired to score a documentary about an Italian sculptor, with the intention of grafting on the sounds of “sonorous sculptures” to his minimalist piano compositions. That he’s doing so on the ECM label, home to Keith Jarrett’s legendary ’70s recordings, carries a certain weight among jazz fans. Venier is more than up to the task. Miniatures is meditative and lovely, melodic and gentle, the resonant gongs and bells and other metallic sounds employed tastefully and effectively. If, like me, you’ve had a hectic summer of visits and excess and joy and mourning and too much rock’n’roll and sweaty R&B, here’s your antidote and a perfect comedown. (Aug. 25)

Stream: “Byzantine Icon,” “Prayer,” “Asian Songs and Rhythms No. 40)

June 2014 reviews

Highly recommended: Meridian Brothers, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Jack White, Slakah the Beatchild

Can’t believe I missed this in 2013: John Grant

Worth your while: everything else

The following reviews originally ran in the Waterloo Record.

  

Fatima Al Qadiri – Asiatisch (Hyperdub)

Born and raised in Kuwait, currently living in London and New York, Fatima Al Qadiri has never been to China. Yet she’s fascinated by the music of that country—more specifically, how the rest of the world understands Chinese music: its tonalities, its scale, how it’s been interpreted by Western ears over centuries. She describes Asiatisch as “a virtual road trip through imagined China.”

What a Chinese musician might think of this, no one’s bothered to ask; Qadiri was raised literally in between China and London—to which her style of electronic music owes its largest debt, specifically her icy, noir-ish labelmates on the Hyperdub label—so she’s arguably more entitled to this exploration than, say, some white guy from Wyoming.

The politics of her approach aside, Asiatisch is bewitching and fascinating, both melodically and texturally. This is not beat music; Qadiri opts for a more cinematic, dreamlike approach. She also has a penchant for unfashionably out-of-date synths, i.e. ones from the late ’80s, which fit her contextual motif perfectly: the sounds that are too cheezy to be either vintage or forward-looking are perfectly in line with the anomaly that is current Asian pop music, which appropriates many of Western pop’s worst habits 20 years later.

That manifests itself in the bizarre, ersatz cover of Sinead O’Connor’s “Nothing Compares 2 U,” sung by guest vocalist Helen Feng. Rather, it’s not exactly a cover: it’s titled “Shanzai,” for one thing, and takes just enough liberties with the melody that it might withstand a court challenge for plagiarism. It’s disorienting, haunting and oddly beautiful: no wonder Qadiri chose it as the opening track, setting up the rest of her conceit perfectly. (June 26)

Download: “Szechuan,” “Wudang,” “Shanghai Freeway”

John Grant – Pale Green Ghosts (Nevado)

I don’t normally review albums more than a year old. But I had never heard of John Grant before now. Or maybe I had: Pitchfork and Mojo and The Guardian and Sinead O’Connor and Elton John are all huge fans; O’Connor has covered him, and Elton John invited Grant to be on his self-curated tribute to Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.

Grant’s non-descript birth name doesn’t do him any favours in the recognition department. What makes more of an impression than anything else is the phrases tumbling out of his mouth, articulating the unthinkable—comparing a lover’s silence to Agent Orange—and using words like callypigian (look it up, it’s a good one).

In an album chock full of quotable moments, nothing beats this chorus, set to a tune worthy of Tom Petty: “I am the greatest motherf--ker that you’re ever going to meet / from the top of my head down to the tips of the toes on my feet / Go ahead and love me while it’s still a crime / don’t forget, you could be laughing 65 per cent more of the time.”

This baritone bear of a man, a failed alt-rock musician from Colorado who relocated to Iceland (where he wrote that country’s 2014 Eurovision entry), pens lush ballads and electro pop, both equally strange and profane, that sound like no one else—except perhaps a strange amalgam of Buck 65 and the Magnetic Fields’ Stephin Merritt. Maybe Pink Floyd and Kraftwerk setting Lou Reed diaries to music, only with a much greater sense of melody. Maybe—nope, I can’t do it. John Grant is a rare and beautiful bird. End of story. His name and face might be easily camouflaged in the crowd, but these are songs you will never forget. (June 19)

Download: “Blackbelt,” “GMF,” “You Don’t Have To”

Hedwig and the Angry Inch – Broadway Cast Recording (Warner)

The greatest rock music of our time debuted 15 years ago off-Broadway; the 2001 film, starring creator John Cameron Mitchell, became a cult hit, and this year a Broadway remount of the show, starring Neil Patrick Harris, nabbed four Tony awards: hence this new cast recording.

“It’s funny how things work out,” Mitchell told the Toronto Star last week. “The original show was never a big money-maker, the movie was initially a flop, although Hedwig is always playing somewhere around the world. It’s so popular in Korea they even had a TV reality show to pick the next Hedwig in the last production.”

The story of Hedwig is threadbare: its appeal lies entirely in the title character, a failed glam rock singer who suffered a botched sex-change operation, and her relationship with a protégé who steals all her songs and becomes a star. Hedwig is both hilarious and tragic, but it’s the songs—by Mitchell and Stephen Trask—that transform it from a curiosity into a triumph. There’s already a cast recording from the off-Broadway version, the soundtrack to the film, and a tribute album (Wig in a Box) featuring Cyndi Lauper, Rufus Wainwright, Spoon, Sleater-Kinney and more. Do we need to hear these songs again?

Yes. For all its cult popularity, Hedwig still needed a proper, modern recording. The tribute album, worthy as it is, is more interpretive than reverent. The energy of the band here is more pronounced here than on either soundtrack featuring Mitchell, and the production is full of punch. Perhaps needless to say, Tony winner Harris is fantastic, as is his female foil, Lena Hall. As a bonus, there’s one new song, “When Love Explodes (Love Theme from Hurt Locker)”: “Love can be scary in the hurt locker / it’s tender and it’s raw and filled with shock and awe / and we will be consumed when love explodes.”

Every one of these songs deserves to be an American classic, and this is the recording to make the case. Hair? Tommy? Jersey Boys? American Idiot? Please. Hedwig rules them all. (June 26)

Download: “Tear Me Down,” “Wicked Little Town,” “Wig in a Box”

Hamilton Leithauser - Black Hours (Ribbon)

Some voices are too big for rock’n’roll. Hamilton Leithauser certainly had sublime moments as frontman for the Walkmen, but at some point the bombast started to sound suffocating. Here, on his solo debut, Leithauser and Walkmen guitarist Paul Maroon strip everything down and steps into noir-ish cabaret mode (hence the title, no doubt), adding marimba and the Dirty Projectors’ Amber Coffman on backing vocals when they see fit. Given room to roam over this moody, often atmospheric collection, Leithauser proves what a remarkable vocalist he truly is. He only disappoints on the tracks that sound merely like the Walkmen unplugged. Someone send this guy to Broadway. (June 12)

Download: “5 AM,” “The Silent Orchestra,” “Bless Your Heart”

Corb Lund – Counterfeiters Blues (New West)

Corb Lund and his Hurtin’ Albertans are a barn-burning live act, and have been for more than a decade. This is their first live album—of sorts. With seven fine albums behind him, Lund is consistently converting new fans—many of whom surely don’t know where to start with his back catalogue. Counterfeiters Blues is not a live album, but it finds Lund and his band revisiting his two bestsellers—2002’s stone-cold classic Five Dollar Bill and 2005’s Hair in My Eyes Like a Highland Steer—by recording selected songs from them live at Memphis’s fabled Sun Studios (former home to Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, etc.).

These are songs that these boys know inside out—and it shows. Playing the title tracks and crowd-pleasers like “Shine Up My Boots” or “Roughest Neck Around” is surely little more than muscle memory by now, but it comes off as a lot more than that. You could argue that these veterans were in awe of their historic surroundings in Memphis, but the truth is that they probably sound like this every night. This is a well-oiled machine that gets better with age, especially guitarist Grant Siemens.

Lund doesn’t need a nostalgia trip; his last album, 2012’s Cabin Fever, was easily one of his best. But this collection, which accompanies a television special about the session (included with the CD), is a welcome treat for fans old and new. (June 19)

Download: “Hair in My Eyes Like a Highland Steer,” “(Gonna) Shine Up My Boots,” “Truth Comes Out”

Meridian Brothers – Salvadora Robot (Soundway)

Your summer should sound like this: drunk, demented, delirious—and South American. This is what your World Cup party feels like after your underdog team beats all odds and you find yourself using a vuvuzela to imbibe multi-coloured sugary drinks you’ve never seen before, kissing people in the street and waking up in a strange part of town.

Elbis Alvarrez is the one-man operation from Bogota calling himself Meridian Brothers. On his third international release—not counting his side projects, including the mind-melting Los Piranas—he mashes together every equatorial genre of music (cumbia, calypso, reggae, samba) and escorts you through a funhouse of mirrors. Whether you dance or just sit there dazed is up to you.

Alvarrez has a simple methodology: set up a killer percussion track, employ minimal rhythm guitar, and then wig out on either processed lead guitar or fuzzy organs that sound like bees—all while cackling maniacally. Evil genius, or just plain genius? Maybe just the album of the summer. (June 19)

Download: “De Mi Caballo Como Su Carne,” “Un Principe Miserable Y Malvado,” “Balie Ultimo”

Shi Wisdom – Stranger Things Have Happened (independent)

Perhaps the most underrated Canadian hip-hop record of 2013 was Water, by Toronto producer KJ, where the dark, ominous beats put to shame the considerably more acclaimed work of Drake and The Weeknd; together, they all make Toronto seem like one spooky place. Now comes singer Shi Wisdom, with KJ behind the boards, and she injects some badly needed estrogen into the scene. Her ultra-cool coo is nothing short of chilling on “Young Gunner,” a harrowing tale of urban violence; that track alone should catapult her into the larger consciousness. But she has a softer and sultry side, too, one that aspires to be “sipping champagne on a yacht”—even if her uneasy aural surroundings suggest that to be more aspirational than immediately attainable. With a voice like that, however—and with KJ in her corner—surely it’s only a matter of time. (June 12)

Download: “The Key,” “Fly Too,” “Young Gunner”

Slakah the Beatchild - Soul Movement Vol. 2 (BBE)

Hip-hop has been sounding a lot less funky lately—thanks, Drake and Kanye. “Old school” no longer means a throwback to the ’80s or the Golden Age of the early ‘90s; by channelling the broken beat movement and neo-soul of the early 2000s, Toronto producer Slakah the Beatchild—on whose previous album Drake was a guest MC—now sounds positively retro, and better for it. The first lyrics you hear come from MC Spek Won, setting the tone: “Starts with a boom, ends with a bap, it’s in between the boom and the bap is the gap / in between the gap is where the magic happens / a chemical reaction.”

The last Slakah record came out under his rock/pop guise, the Slakadeliqs; it landed on the Polaris Prize long list and got a fair amount of attention, but I found it limp and uninspired. This, however, proves that he’s much more than just a genre dabbler; these tight and jazzy grooves, many of which turn themselves inside out over the course of a track, are the product of a serious vision. Guest vocalists include powerhouse soul sister Tanika Charles, newcomer Ayah and the long-lost Glenn Lewis, but they all take a back seat to the beats—and the Beatchild. (June 12)

Download: “Stompthatflo” (feat. Spek Won), “Something About Her,” “Love Fool” (feat. Tanika Charles)

William Tyler – Lost Colony EP (Merge)

If I told you this was an instrumental guitar rock record, I wouldn’t blame you for running away screaming. The genre is usually the domain of masturbatory showboaters who just don’t know when to shut up and sit back. Nashville’s William Tyler, however, is a much more delicate man than that. Having grown up as a young wunderkind playing sideman in older people’s bands (Lambchop, Silver Jews), Tyler has a deep reverence for both mainstream country (his parents are hit songwriters) and the avant-garde (he’s a big fan of Krautrock band Neu!; here, he covers a solo track by that band’s guitarist, Michael Rother). On this EP, which follows up two acclaimed albums of solo, fingerpicked electric guitar compositions, Tyler employs a backing band to allow him to explore psychedelic textures, hammer out droning power chords over a driving rhythm section, and bring the subtle virtuosity he displayed as a sideman to the forefront. Tyler’s version of Americana draws from so much more than cliché country or rock forms; this is a man whose guitar speaks many languages. (June 19)

Download: all three songs

Viet Cong – Cassette (Mexican Summer)

Matt Flegel and Matt Wallace are not Vietnamese, yet they are Viet Cong. They are also not women, yet they used to be one-half of the Calgary band Women. When they don’t claim to be anything at all, they’ve been known to be sidemen for freaky fractured folk guy Chad Van Gaalen. As Viet Cong, they play catchy, ramshackle and reverb-heavy garage rock that owes a debt to early ’80s British post-punk: opening track “Throw It Away” is a dead ringer for The Jam, while “Structureless Design” is downright goth. Psychedelic touches colour the edges, and they make the most out of their decidedly lo-fi sound. A full-length album is currently being recorded with Graham Walsh (Holy Fuck, Metz); look for it to be some of the most glorious noise of the year. (June 12)

Download: “Throw It Away,” “Static Wall,” “Unconscious Melody”

Jack White – Lazaretto (Third Man/Sony)

No artist wants to launch a new album with a public apology. A week before Lazaretto’s release, Jack White was quoted in Rolling Stone dissing various peers; this, along with messy details of his divorce last year, didn’t do well to endear him to the record-buying public. So he quickly issued a long apology on his website, claiming he was quoted out of context and has nothing but respect and/or love for those artists allegedly caught in his crosshairs. (Widely reposted, the original post in question has mysteriously been taken down.) “Would You Fight For My Love?” asks White in the title of one of his new tracks. Long-time fans may be beginning to wonder.

Maybe Jack White is a bit of an ass. Maybe he’s not. He certainly has terrible hair these days, for what it’s worth. But if we approach his music on its own terms, White gives us plenty of reason to stand by our man. His first solo album, 2012’s Blunderbuss, sounded like White suddenly liberated from the constraints of each of his other three bands; here his eclectic tastes crystallize into a far more potent punch. Country fiddles collide with blues riffs on heavy garage rock with R&B beats, and White makes it all sound effortless. (It wasn’t; uncharacteristically for White, he spent much longer than a week on this record.) He even does it while using two completely different full bands—one male, one female—each of which boasts killer keyboardists, pedal steel players and funky drummers, each of which bring out the best in him. Perhaps needless to say, his guitar sound is monstrous, and he plays with more fire than he has in ages—it’s probably the divorce talking. (The lyrics back up this thesis.)

If you only read the rock’n’roll gossip pages, you might want Jack White to fail. But once you hear this record, you can be sure that he hasn’t. (June 12)

Download: “Three Women,” “Lazaretto,” “High Ball Stepper”