New Releases for April 14, 2023
CDs + Vinyl:
The Ducks – High Flyin’ 2xCD/3xLP (Reprise)
This is the first official release by The Ducks – a short lived group that Neil Young played with in 1977. The Ducks featured Neil (guitar, harmonica and vocals), Bob Mosely (bass and vocals), Jeff Blackburn (guitar and vocals) and Johnny Craviotto (drums). Mosely was an original member of Bay Area band Moby Grape; Blackburn had previously fronted his own band and co-wrote with Neil the classic track “My My Hey Hey (Out of the Blue)”. The band played several shows in Santa Cruz, CA and other California venues during two months in 1977, and this 25-track live album features highlights from those shows.
El Michels Affair & Black Thought – Glorious Game CD/LP (Big Crown)
Glorious Game a remarkable debut partnership in more ways than one. Michels provides his bottom-heavy, soul-tinged production for Black Thought who gives us some of the more personal and transparent verses we’ve ever heard from him.
Feist – Multitudes CD/LP (Interscope)
Multitudes serves as the 11-time Juno Award-winning artist’s sixth full-length album and first release since 2017’s critically acclaimed Pleasure. The 12-track collection took shape soon after the birth of Feist’s daughter and the sudden death of her father, a back-to-back convergence of life-altering events that left the Canadian singer/songwriter with “Nothing performative in me anymore.” Amid meditations on mortality, connection and the frenetic state of the human condition, Multitudes ultimately radiates an ineffable sense of hope.
Fruit Bats – A River Running To Your Heart CD/LP+MP3 (Merge)
Fruit Bats has often showcased love songs where people and locations meld into one. It’s a loose song structure that navigates what Eric D. Johnson calls “the geography of the heart.” Those pathways extend straight through the newest Fruit Bats album, aptly titled A River Running To Your Heart.
Magnolia Park –Baku’s Revenge CD/LP+MP3 (Epitaph)
While Magnolia Park’s music is at times lighthearted, the ethnically diverse band are also serious about spreading a message of inclusivity and inspiring other kids like them to start bands as a form of creative expression.
Ann-Margret – Born To Be Wild CD (Cleopatra)
New full release from stage and screen icon, the lovely Ann-Margret. One of Hollywood’s brightest lights and star of such film classics as Bye Bye Birdie and Viva Las Vegas, Ann-Margret proudly presents all new recordings of her singing pop and rock standards in her own ineffable, entrancing singing voice.
Natalie Merchant – Keep Your Courage CD/2xLP (Nonesuch)
Keep Your Courage isNatalie Merchant’s ninth solo studio album and first of new material since 2014’s self-titled record. An eclectic album, produced by Merchant, it features two duets sung with vocalist Abena Koomson-Davis (Resistance Revival Chorus), contributions from the Celtic folk group Lúnasa and Syrian virtuoso clarinetist Kinan Azmeh, and horn arrangements by jazz trombonist Steve Davis.
Metallica – 72 Seasons CD/2xLP/Cassette (Blackened Recordings)
Metallica returns with its long-awaited twelfth studio album 72 Seasons. Issued via the band’s own Blackened Recordings, the 12-track collection was produced by Greg Fidelman with James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich and clocks in at over 77 minutes. 72 Seasons is Metallica’s first full length collection of new material since 2016’s Hardwired…To Self-Destruct. Speaking on the concept of the album title, James said, “72 seasons. The first 18 years of our lives that form our true or false selves. The concept that we were told ‘who we are’ by our parents. A possible pigeonholing around what kind of personality we are. I think the most interesting part of this is the continued study of those core beliefs and how it affects our perception of the world today. Much of our adult experience is reenactment or reaction to these childhood experiences. Prisoners of childhood or breaking free of those bondages we carry.” [An indie store exclusive vinyl pressing is available.]
The Tallest Man On Earth – Henry St. CD/LP+MP3 (ANTI-)
Kristian Matsson returns as The Tallest Man On Earth with Henry St., his sixth studio album. Henry St. notably marks the first time he recorded an album in a band setting. “An overarching theme of Henry St.”, he says, is “how to be a person in this world.”
Temples – Exotico CD/2xLP (ATO)
Produced by Sean Ono Lennon and mixed by Dave Fridmann (Beach House, Spoon, The Flaming Lips), Temples fourth full-length album Exotico takes place on an impossibly utopic island dreamed up by the four band members. With its resplendent collage of psychedelia, krautrock, and time-bending dream-pop, Exotico brings that world to life in crystalline detail, all while exploring an entire spectrum of existential themes: impermanence, mortality, our connection with nature and the wild immensity of the mind.
Waterparks – Intellectual Property CD/LP (Fueled By Ramen)
Pop/rock three-piece Waterparks deliver their fifth full-length studio album Intellectual Property.
The Wood Brothers – Heart Is The Hero CD/LP (Honey Jar/Thirty Tigers)
Recorded analog to 16-track tape, this latest effort finds its three creators embracing the chemistry of their acclaimed live shows by capturing their performances in real-time direct from the studio floor with nary a computer in sight.
Neil Young with The Santa Monica Flyers – Somewhere Under The Rainbow 1973 2xCD/2xLP (Reprise)
Neil Young and The Santa Monica Flyers (Neil Young, Nils Lofgren, Ben Keith, Billy Talbot, Ralph Molina) played London’s Rainbow Theatre on November 5th, 1973, with the first half of the concert dedicated to Neil Young’s masterpiece album Tonight’s The Night. The intense concert was recorded by Pete Long, and includes riveting versions of the Tonight’s The Night tracks, plus Young classics “Cowgirl In The Sand”, “Don’t Be Denied”, and “Flying On The Ground Is Wrong”.
David Axelrod – Heavy Axe [Reissue/1974] LP (Craft Recordings)
Legendary composer/producer David Axelrod’s album, Heavy Axe, is a jazz-rock opus that encapsulated the sound of the mid- ‘70s. With help from iconic players Johnny “Guitar” Watson, Cannonball Adderley and George Duke, the album moves between lush funk sounds, full round low end, and majestic orchestral flourishes that made Axelrod’s sonic realm a goldmine for sample-hungry hip-hop beatmakers from the ’90s to today.
The Flaming Lips – Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots [Reissue/2002] 5xLP (WB)
The Flaming Lips’ Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots was released in 2002 and is the band’s best-selling album, certified Gold in the US with over 700,000 albums sold. The album features one of the band’s most iconic songs – “Do You Realize?” – plus the singles “Fight Test”, “Ego Tripping At The Gates of Hell”, and the title track. The 20th Anniversary Deluxe Edition five-LP Vinyl box set includes the original album, B-sides, demos, and radio sessions, and other assorted rarities. 56 tracks total, of which over 30 are previously unreleased, and 40 that will be available on vinyl for the first time.
Florence + The Machine – Dance Fever (Live At Madison Square Garden) 2xLP (Republic)
A collection of live recordings from her Dance Fever Tour, recorded at two sold-out September 2022 Madison Square Garden dates in New York City, Dance Fever sees Florence at the peak of her powers, coming into a fully realized self-knowledge, poking sly fun at her own self-created persona, playing with ideas of identity, masculine and feminine, redemptive, celebratory, stepping into her place in the iconic pantheon.
Hank III – Damn Right Rebel Proud [Reissue/2008] LP (Curb)
Blue colorway. Damn Right Rebel Proud is the fourth studio album released by Hank Williams III, an American musician, singer, and multi-instrumentalist, known for his unique combination of country music, punk rock, and heavy metal.
Angel Olsen – Forever Means 12” (Jagjaguwar)
Last year’s Big Time brought Angel Olsen to a deeper, truer sense of self than ever before. Borne from the twin stars of grief and love, the album delivered beautiful sense of certainty, the sure-footed sound of an artist fully, finally at home with herself. But within that wisdom comes the realization that there is no finish line, no destination or static end point to life while you’re living it, and Forever Means collects songs from the Big Time sessions that hold this common theme. They are, in Olsen’s words, “in search of something else.” [A limited-edition pink colorway is available.]
