Staff Picks for March 2020
March 31, 2020
There are very few bands in the known universe that you can say draw upon such varied influences as the Stooges, Hawkwind, and Can. On Naam's debut, the group issues a vintage-sounding offering that manages to include elements of stoner rock, garage rock, and psychedelic star-gazing. Unlike other stoner metal acts that appear content to play the same riff for minutes on end through a bong-smoke haze, Naam offers enough twists and turns to keep it interesting.
March 30, 2020
Prince Royce's mix of urban, bachata, and Latin pop felt especially fresh and exciting as this sophomore effort landed on shelves, but this ballad-driven release is far from gimmicky. From the massive "it's the little things" hit "Los Cosas Pequeñas," to the broad and uplifting dance-pop of "It's My Time," Prince Royce proves himself to be a talented, heartfelt singer, pulling a lot of soul out of his soft, amiable voice.
March 29, 2020
Before her late 2000s rebirth as the choice pop artist for sophisticates, and while under the thumb of a record industry she found creatively oppressive, Robyn still managed to punch her way through and deliver some all-time dance-pop classics on her debut. She may not perform these songs anymore, but they live on in their recorded incarnations.
March 28, 2020
Shelby Lynne's previous albums had a more contemporary country feel, but this Bill Botrell (Sheryl Crow, Tom Petty)-produced record had a booming southern R&B vibe reminiscent of Dusty in Memphis with its lush arrangements and string section accents. The album ended up earning Lynne the Grammy Award for Best New Artist (despite the fact that she had released six albums over the thirteen years of her music career).
March 27, 2020
1975-1977-1998 includes five tracks of passive-aggressive, quirky post-hardcore that sound like the background music of a harshly real nightmare. On this EP, their follow-up to the 7" "If You Can Bake a Cake, You Can Build a Bomb," the 90 Day Men create a thrilling masterpiece of innovation and anger; discordant yet sometimes jazzy riffs to stop-start guitar bashing, spite-filled vocals that bite and spit, background samples of unknown voices whispering -- all of the pieces fit together beautifully.
March 26, 2020
Likely the best album to open with coughing, which has become a much scarier sound than any growl or guitar crunch, the third Sabbath album is often held up as the band's best. In a tight 35 minutes, the Birmingham icons power through six unhurried heavy metal classics that make for a fitting soundtrack to surviving isolation.
March 25, 2020
Capitol, which had already released ten Beach Boys albums in three years, was bugging the group for product that it could release in time for the 1965 Christmas season. To buy time while Brian Wilson began conceiving the Pet Sounds masterpiece, the group issued a set of covers, featuring '50s rock and R&B hits they had listened to as schoolboys, plus some newer sounds. Packaged as if it had been recorded at an actual party, it was in fact recorded in the studio over a few sessions, with friends, family and romantic partners adding sounds and vocals to create an informal atmosphere.
March 24, 2020
After years of wanting to forget the hideous clothes, music, and politics of the 1980s, the kitsch and cool of that era are once again embraced through music, so hooray for the second coming of candied synth beats and chunky guitar riffs. Sweden's Sahara Hotnights get in on the game with their second album, Kiss & Tell, which is much more approachable and playful compared to the band's 2002 debut. The slick punk edges of "Fire Alarm" and "On Top of Your World" are replaced with glossy pop touches and a polish that would make the Go-Go's, Cheap Trick, and Big Star blush with pride for what they created two decades before.
March 23, 2020
Heavier than it has any right to be, Mule's swampy punk blues sophomore (and final) album stomps and churns like a gut full of bathtub whiskey and questionable choices. A decade before The White Stripes brought a similarly raw guitar sound to the masses, P.W. Long and company investigated darker alleyways and hollars, offering a brutal and beautiful series of broken men and busted promises.
March 22, 2020
While the lasting impression of Green Day's follow-up to American Idiot seems to be the painfully sincere "21 Guns," there's a myriad of unheralded album cuts here that justify a place alongside the band's most energetic and well-crafted songs. Just try and listen to "Christian's Inferno," "Modern World," "Murder City," and either "Viva La Gloria" track without your blood rushing faster.
March 21, 2020
Burial didn't release a proper full-length follow-up to his widely influential 2007 opus Untrue during the 2010s, but some of his absolute best work surfaced in the form of singles and EPs, making a good argument that some people continue to place far too much significance on the album format. This double CD compiles the best of his Hyperdub output during the decade, but not in chronological order, tracing a new narrative out of material that previously appeared in surprise bursts. Amazingly, nearly all of these tracks sound even better with age. Really, Burial is the best artist of the 21st century so far, and this collection goes a long way towards explaining why.
March 20, 2020
The future of the band moniker remains uncertain as frontman/songwriter John Eatherly embarked on a solo career in 2019, but this good-time 2016 debut took a heaping spoonful of American power pop à la "My Sharona" and the Cars, mixed it with a shot of the Brit-pop of the Libertines and the Kooks, and topped it off with a heavy dose of New York swagger. Adrenalized hooks are often offset by vocals that snarl and grouse but are happy to jump aboard melodies in the (often harmonized) choruses.
March 19, 2020
Recorded in 1976 and originally released on the independent label Private Stock, Blondie's first set of songs were shades grittier and more raw than the radio pop hits they'd be producing in a few years. Born out of an incredibly creative communal hotstreak in downtown New York's lawless early days of punk, Blondie was part of the same CBGB's scene that helped give life to the Ramones, Television and Talking Heads. Nowhere did they sound quite as unpolished and fun in keeping with that downtown spirit as on their debut.
March 18, 2020
Time hasn't been kind to Steve Lillywhite's production on XTC's Black Sea; the booming drums may have been big in 1980, but they seem a bit much in 2020. But the sound does reinforce this as XTC's hardest rocking effort, and the hard punch of "Respectable Street," the nearly violent groove of "Living Through Another Cuba," and the noisy void of "Travels in Nihlion" give this a physical power they would never again match.
March 17, 2020
Various Artists
Chronicling the five-year period between 1967 and 1972, Dust on the Nettles pools together the various intertwining movements of underground folk in the U.K. from the more staunch traditionalists to the more cerebral, psych-influenced acts and everything in between.
March 16, 2020
Though it's arguably their poppiest and most mainstream friendly efforts -- not to mention the fact that it's more like a James Mercer solo joint -- the Shins' fourth full-length is a wealth of pleasing, catchy, and soulful gems that strike a fine balance between their classic indie sound and the production quality from Mercer's other project with Dangermouse, Broken Bells. There's not a bad song here.
March 15, 2020
Baritone saxophonist Ronnie Cuber came up playing with heavyweights like Maynard Ferguson, Dr. Lonnie Smith, and Eddie Palmieri. He brought all of that varied experience to bear on his debut as leader, 1976's Cuber Libre. Joining him here is the esteemable trio of pianist Barry Harris, bassist Sam Jones, and drummer Albert Heath. This a hard swinging NYC-session with Latin and West Coast jazz undercurrents that showcases Cuber's robust tone and lyrically kinetic bop lines.
March 14, 2020
Led by the hyper-charismatic Jeff Whalen, this Los Angeles group blended cheeky glam rock, outraged punk, glossy new wave, hooky pop, and showboating hard rock into a memorably infectious debut. Highlights among highlights on the album include "Kathy Fong Is the Bomb" and the still timely anti-corporate anthem "Calling All Destroyers."
March 13, 2020
The mixed CD format was still nascent when Coldcut assembled the 8th volume of the Journey by DJ series, but they completely redefined it with this mind-boggling set. Instead of trying to replicate the spontaneity of a typical club night, they stitched dozens of disparate tracks together through rigorous computer editing, throwing everything in the cauldron from jungle to Harold Budd to a Jello Biafra monologue. For no-holds-barred free-form mixing, this is still unbeatable.
March 12, 2020
This 1981 release from L.A.'s Wasted Youth checked all the boxes of hardcore's earliest days. 10 songs of fast, sloppy and raw punk fly by in about 13 minutes, defined by snarling guitar tones and lyrics about teenage rebellion and political upheaval in the Reagan era. They were less known than the Black Flags and Suicidal Tendencies of the day, but this release is a must-hear for anyone interested in the evolution of punk.
March 11, 2020
1992's Hollywood Town Hall wasn't the Jayhawks first album, but it was the one where their ingredients came together in just the right balance. As songwriters and vocalists, Gary Louris and Mark Olson blended perfectly here, their takes of small town desolation revealing an affecting warmth and simple but eloquent melodic strength, and Louris's Neil Young-influenced guitar leads hit their marks beautifully. A nearly perfect album, and the Jayhawks' best.
March 10, 2020
A sprawling masterpiece, akin to the Beatles' White Album, the Stones' Exile on Main St., or Wilco's Being There in its makeup, if not its sound. Rock, folk, blues, country, Latin, and bluegrass have all been styles touched on in Stephen Stills' career, and the skilled, energetic musicians he had gathered in Manassas played them all on this album. What could have been a disorganized mess in other hands, though, here all gelled together to culminate in what amounts to a masterpiece.
March 9, 2020
AOR Rock in the mid-1970s rarely got better thanthis St. Louis-based outfit’s debut long player. Their meld of hooky, melodic, progressive hard rock with awesome vocal arrangements, drew radio programmers in droves. Opening with their best known single, the infinitely catchy (and now classic), “There’s Never Been Any Reason," this date contains no filler, while offering several other tunes including "Jefftown Creek" and "City of Gold." This disc is among the the best the band released.
March 8, 2020
The reluctantly influential guitar man steps into the '80s on Shades, a surprisingly reliable set given that nearly every track features a different band. The highlights are in the stylistic quirks of the era where his laid-back style charmingly collides with bright synths on "Love Has Been Gone" and the marvelous "Wish I Had Not Said That."
March 7, 2020
Various Artists
So you miss System of a Down and the guys just refuse to make a new album (despite reuniting for live shows). The next best thing is this side project from Daron Malakian and John Dolmayan, which is essentially everything but Serj Tankian's manic vocal presence or gravitas. Live-wire Malakian unleashes on highlights "Stoner Hate," "Chemicals," and "Cute Machines," while taking the opportunity to spread his creative wings with "Funny" and "Enemy." It's no SOAD, but it fills the void if you need a quick hit.
March 6, 2020
Around the turn of the century, Weatherall compiled this crucial set of funk- and electronic-leaning post-punk. It's crammed with underground classics that preceded the adored DJ/producer's unintended commercial emergence with remixes for the likes of Happy Mondays, Primal Scream, and My Bloody Valentine.
March 5, 2020
The Japanese emo/post-rock quintet's first full-length in five years is their shortest, most direct album since their early hardcore era. The eight songs are typically hard, epic, and anthemic, alternating quiet, reflective moments with bright, melodic guitars and crashing drums.
March 4, 2020
As grand a time as a night of abandon in the brothels of Barcelona is an evening spent with the Upper Crust, the wigged, aristocratic ensemble from Boston that "rocques" quite hard in both a live setting and on its fabled, but few records. With The Decline and Fall of the Upper Crust, these rosy-cheeked noblemen have taken their AC/DC obsession and amplified that fine act's greatness and ridiculousness to a level of near perfection thoroughly undeserved by the common rock rabble.
March 3, 2020
With 1985's Fear and Whiskey, shape-shifting UK punks the Mekons took a detour into country music, and discovered they liked it there. The wide spaces and doomstruck mood of vintage country (not to mention the fondness for booze) turned out to be a fine match for the mid-80s Mekons, and Fear and Whiskey not only was their first genuinely great album, its sound and themes would cast a long shadow through their future career.
March 2, 2020
Andrew Weatherall's first post-Sabres outing (together with Keith Tenniswood) is a truly beguiling cachet of alternately moody and unexpectedly funky down- and mid-tempo electro. Miles more complex and integrated than such future-funk wibblers as the Clear Records stable, Fifth Mission is often as tear-jerkingly emotional as it is goofball lino material; machine music imbued with more than a bit of humanity. Uniformly excellent.
March 1, 2020
The fifth studio long-player from the Seattle-based duo, Command Your Weather emits a masterful blast of minimalist, mostly upbeat anthemic post-metal that lays to rest any notion that Big Business is purely in the sludge trade. They may be broadcasting from metal's outer limits, but these post-rock anthems dressed up in stoner metal are mighty engaging.