Considering January is supposed to be the longest and most miserable month, February 2022 seems to be going on forever. Between a world seemingly dominated by bad news, and the UK braced for not one, but two storms – it feels like things will get worse before springtime eventually hits.
We all need a distraction, and the two Johns from They Might Be Giants have the very thing. For the next few hours, they’re offering everyone two digital album releases FREE of charge.
In the age of streaming and the likes of Spotify supplying a world of new tunes at the push of a button, it sometimes feels as if music has become a disposable commodity. Albums often appear, get a six week promotional cycle and then disappear just as quickly, leaving the consumer to move on to the next quick hit.
Good music deserves far more of a shelf life. How else are new releases allowed time to grow into the new ‘Pet Sounds’ or ‘Born To Run’? Nobody understands how important it is to cling onto great music than Kurt Baker. He’s still busily promoting his 2020 album ‘After Party’. Since that album was released, he’s relocated back to the US, hooked up with his old bandmates (including Kris Rodgers of Dirty Gems fame), and started playing new gigs in support of the record. There’s so much about it that could be his best to date, so it really deserves this ongoing love.
After spending a couple of years perfecting their riffs and honing a heavy, retro sound, Norwegian stoner rockers White Tundra unveiled their debut EP ‘Graveyard Blues’ in the middle of the 2020 global pandemic. Their weighty Monster Magnet/COC influenced sounds were a perfect compliment to a troubled time, and proved yet again that a tried and tested heavy psych/stoner sound could still impress when delivered with a lot of confidence and a few massive hooks. The title cut, in particular, with its chugging riff, gravelly vocals and rattling bassline – at times sounding as if a direct descendant of ‘Children of The Grave’ – set White Tundra on the road to stoner greatness, but ‘Freedom Fighter’ with its heavy and lurching anger suggested they’d have more to give than your bog standard stoner copyists.
After a couple of rough but very cool demo recordings, The Radio Buzzkills crashed their way onto the punk scene in 2018 with ‘Get Fired!’, a full length debut that melded the heart of classic 90s pop punk with a tougher edge, some killer choruses and a whole world of confidence. Despite a few teething troubles during the album’s creation, it ended up being one of the year’s best releases – of any style or genre. The band later took their undying love of Screeching Weasel, Ramones and a truckload of Lookout! Records artists and created the tougher sounding – but no less great – ‘Get Lost’, which gained them further enthusiastic press.
The twenty second studio album from Yes, ‘The Quest’ demonstrated how the ever evolving and legendary prog band were still capable of making great music. With a delicate balance between soaring melodies and complex structures, the album harked back to classic Yes in many ways, but also showed how they refused to become stagnant.