Greetings! This week I review six albums, including shoegaze vets Ride‘s third and best album since reforming a decade ago; The High Llamas‘ best album in nearly three decade, plus very good new albums from Dent May, Holiday Ghosts, Reyna Tropical and Chastity Belt.
It’s a bigger week in Notable Releases, as Andrew gives a first-impressions review to Beyoncé’s new don’t-call-it-country album Cowboy Carter, plus spins of album from from Shabazz Palaces, Roc Marciano, VIAL, NØ MAN, and more.
I’m still kinda recovering from my long weekend at Knoxville’s Big Ears festival which was a blast and I saw a lot of amazing music, including free jazz flautists, whistlers and one former Led Zeppelin bassist. Check out my recaps here.
Next week is absolutely insane as far as releases go so I’m gonna keep things short. Head below for this week’s reviews and see you in April.
ALBUM OF THE WEEK #1: Ride – Interplay (Wichita)
Third time’s the charm for the second act of these shoegaze greats, with the Ride-iest Ride songs and coolest diversions yet.
Along with their Oxford friends Slowdive, Ride are having one of the best second acts in recent memory. Their third album since reforming a decade ago, Interplay, is the sound of an older, wiser and more comfortable in their skin group who are no longer worrying about being part of a current scene and just making music for themselves. Really, really good music. Andy Bell, who leads the band alongside fellow singer/guitarist Mark Gardner, has intimated that this was not the easiest album to make, but Interplay sounds effortless, with some of their Ride-iest songs since the early ’90s and their best swerves away from their signature sound to date. As to the former, “Portland Rocks” is blissed-out shoegaze perfection and pure Ride, from the “ahhhhs” and harmonies to the roaring, soaring guitars and Loz Colbert’s ever-powerful drumming. Similarly, “Midnight Rider” is armed with a shuffling beat that dares you not to bob your head, and a rumbling low end via bassist Steve Queralt, as well as the band’s signature guitar swirl; “I Came to See the Wreck” lays out a slowly building, beautiful maelstrom. They’ve also got pop songs for days, from the joyous “Peace Sign” to “New Frontier” that owes more than a little to New Order (and The Lightning Seeds), and swaying ballad “Last Night I Went Somewhere to Dream” which is definitely new territory for Ride. Unlike the “Hey we’re Britpop now” move of 1994’s Carnival of Light or whatever was going on on 1996’s Tarantula, all of this sounds natural for Bell, Gardner, Queralt and Colbert, with styles that support a uniformly excellent batch of songs. I already proclaimed 2019’s This is Not a Safe Place their best album since Going Blank Again, which was true, but this one is even better. Interplay is the third great album of Ride’s career.
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ALBUM OF THE WEEK #2: High Llamas – Hey Panda (Drag City)
Sean O’Hagan finds inspiration in Tierra Whack and Tyler The Creator and welcomes collaborators Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy and Rae Morris for High Llamas’ most invigorating album in nearly 30 years
Sean O’Hagan has carved out such an instantly identifiable High Llamas sound over the last 30 years — a mix of Brian Wilson, Steely Dan, Ennio Morricone, Caetano Veloso — that it’s been hard for him to escape his own gorgeously constructed cage. There aren’t any bad High Llamas records, but even big fans like this writer would admit that since 1998’s Cold and Bouncy, you pretty much know what you’re going to get: two or three very catchy songs and lots of meticulously crafted aural wallpaper in their signature style. Not so with Hey Panda, the group’s 11th album that majorly shakes up the formula while still being very much a High Llamas record. Thank the pandemic and O’Hagan’s kids, who were constantly playing Tyler the Creator and Tierra Whack in the house during lockdown; O’Hagan became obsessed with the sound of their music. The seeds were first planted with Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy and Bill Callahan’s 2021 cover of Billie Eilish’s “Wish You Were Gay,” which O’Hagan produced and which allowed him to experiment with the modern hip hop and R&B production (minimal, herky jerky beats, twinkly keyboards, sub bass, autotune) that he has now used all over this new album. Will Oldham also provides lyrics and lead vocals for two songs, “How the Best Was Won” and “The Hungriest Man,” and he brings a welcome new warmth to the proceedings. He’s not the only guest either: Rae Morris sings lead on the album’s best song, “Sisters Friends,” and provides vocals on two others, while O’Hagan’s daughter, Livvy, sings on six others. O’Hagan is still all over this, though often he’s just on backing vocals, and mainly through his unmistakable chord phrasing and way with nylon-string guitars, string arrangements and harmonies. In someone else’s hands, this could be awkward and ham-fisted but he’s such a master of sound, it all flows out naturally. The High Llamas’ music has always been verdant and bucolic, but Hey Panda positively glows.
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Holiday Ghosts – Coat of Arms (FatCat)
Great songs, big choruses and strummy guitars — what more do you need?
Traditional guitar indiepop, the kind descended from The Modern Lovers, Television Personalities and The Clean, is about the least new thing you can have rock and pop in 2024, but in the right hands, like those of Cornwall’s Holiday Ghosts, it can still sound fresh and exciting. Coat of Arms is the four-piece’s fifth album and finds them further honing their style which is anchored on well-crafted songs that are catchy, have something to say, and reveal more nuance with each listen. There are many of those here, from the bouncy but strident “Big Congratulations” and “Sublime Disconnect” to dreamy numbers like “Tired Eyes” and opener “Western Daylight” which builds to a nice head of steam. The vocal interplay between bandleaders Katja Rackin and Samuel Stacpoole remains one of Holiday Ghosts’ most appealing qualities, that and the undeniable appeal of singalong choruses backed by guitars strummed with conviction.
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Chastity Belt – Live Laugh Love (Suicide Squeeze)
Seattle quartet continue to mix irony, ennui and hypnotic guitars on their fifth album
Seattle’s Chastity Belt really know how to build a languid groove, finding melancholic beauty in a simple chord progression and, with some understated guitar heroics and carefully crafted atmospherics, ride it into the sunset. “We’ve been playing music with each other for over a decade,” says chief singer and songwriter Julia Shapiro, “so it really does feel like we’re all fluent in the same language, and a lot of it just happens naturally.” Live Laugh Love is the band’s first for Suicide Squeeze after three albums on Hardly Art, and has them more in the zone than their last couple of releases. Songs like “Kool-Aid” and “Hollow” convey a sense of aimlessness and resignation in both the lyrics (“Waiting for some sign / Wasting time / Breath in hollow air / Nothing’s there”) and the music that is more acceptance than defeat. Live Laugh Love‘s title is clearly a little ironic and a knowing cliche but, like when Shapiro sings “man, it feels good to be alive” against those bummed-out, hypnotic guitar patterns in “Blue,” they somehow circle back around to actually meaning it.
For more, they broke down every song on the album for us.
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Dent May – What’s for Breakfast? (Carpark)
Dent knows that cheese is part of your complete breakfast on his delightful sixth album
What a charmer. Perpetually looking as if he stepped out of a 1992 L.L. Bean catalogue (“Some say I look like James Van Der Beek,” he sings. tongue in cheek), Dent May subverts cliches left and right, be it his ability to twist a tired phrase into something sweet and witty, or the way he takes ’70s and ’80s soft rock tropes and makes them genuinely satisfying. (No surprise: this is a guy who started his musical career playing the ukulele.) Food references are as plentiful on his sixth album as memorable, warmly romantic songs, including “Coating on Fumes” (a duet with Jordana), the deep shag flute-preset grooves of “Kiss Me in the Rain,” and falsetto fueled “Take it From the Top.” Dent understands that as in cooking, cheese can be a very good thing and this Breakfast is an omelet stuffed with gooey gruyere and showered in delicious parm. Who wants seconds?
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Reyna Tropical – Malegría (Psychic Hotline)
Transportive full-length debut from guitarist Fabi Reyna
Los Angeles musician and She Shreds founder Fabi Reyna has led Reyna Tropical since the late 2010s, beginning as a duo, and sadly becoming a solo project since the passing of partner Nectali “Sumohair” Diaz in 2022. After a series of singles and EPs, Malegría is Reyna Tropical’s inviting, transportive full-length debut that blends loop-based grooves with Fabi’s textural guitarwork and lush, breathy harmonies. The album deftly incorporates musical styles from all over the Southern hemisphere, including Congolese, Peruvian, Colombian grooves, all stitched together seamlessly through atmospheric interludes. Bewitching.
