SOUND BITES

Stream the debut full-length album from How To Destroy Angels at Pitchfork Advance . I don't suckle from the Pitchfork teat by any means, but the layout for this stream is pretty badass. After a few years, a couple of just-okay EPs and a handful of teasers, How To Destroy Angels is finally on the cusp of releasing Welcome Oblivion , their debut album. For those unfamiliar with the line-up, HTDA is comprised of Nine Inch Nails mastermind Trent Reznor along with his wife Mariqueen, as well as frequent Reznor collaborators Rob Sheridan and Atticus Ross.

Stream Atoms For Peace's AMOK here , courtesy the group's website. Bear with it, it's a little overrun at the time of posting. Over six years removed from his solo debut The Eraser and two years following Radiohead's last album (the devastatingly underwhelming The King Of Limbs ), Thom Yorke returns next week with AMOK , the debut album from supergroup of sorts Atoms For Peace. The Eraser is a more fair point of comparison for AMOK than the work of Radiohead; comparing it to Red Hot Chili Peppers, despite Flea's involvement with the group, is pretty much pointless altogether. This is very much a Thom Yorke-driven vehicle and, as such, if you've followed his tendencies as a singer and songwriter over the last decade you pretty much know what you're in for. That's not a slight; no one creates an atmosphere quite like Thom. So yes, this album is full of jittery beats, warped synths and deep grooves. It forgoes grabbing you by the throat in favour ...

Stream Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds' Push The Sky Away here , courtesy The Guardian Music Blog. Following the dissolving of odd rock project Grinderman, Nick Cave's fifteenth album with The Bad Seeds is three years removed from the last Grinderman album and five years removed from the last Bad Seeds (2008's extraordinary Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!! ). Push The Sky Away is a fair bit more subdued than anything we've heard from Cave over the better part of the last decade; but, then again, Cave's albums always seem to hit harder when his poetic crooning is at the forefront. See Waters Edge and Jubilee Street (NSFW video below) for a prime example of what makes the man an enduring treasure. Like all of his best work, to pass quick judgment on Push The Sky Away is a disservice; this album doesn't beat you over the head with its awesomeness. It slowly sinks in, its majesty so subtle that repeat listens aren't just recommended, they're demanded. Fortun...

Released forty years ago today, Iggy & The Stooges' Raw Power has quite obviously and formidably stood the test of time. Originally a dud with listeners, it took years for this album to become recognized as the landmark ball of fury that it is. With its notoriously loud mix and uncompromising fury, the third and final of the original Stooges album left a mark on rock music that has been felt prominently over its four decades of existence. Cited as his favourite album, Raw Power influenced Kurt Cobain while he wrote Nirvana songs, so anyone who doubts The Stooges' impact on modern rock needs a good hard smack. Let's mark the occasion by listening to Raw Power in its entirety:

With my longstanding love of weirdness and noise in my music, you'd assume that I've been a massive fan of My Bloody Valentine all this time, and that I was one of the millions who broke the internet last night trying to get in on the download frenzy that happened when they finally ended just over 21 years of anticipation with the release of their third album m b v . I can't explain it, but this album (and, for the sake of consistency, this band) doesn't do anything for me. It's not offensively bad, but it just doesn't transcend like I'm sure countless other music bloggers are opining in their columns as we speak. The majority of these nine songs are more exercises in sound structure and Pitchfork-bating pretentiousness than anything else; new you is the lone exception, a perfectly acceptable tune and welcome increase in tempo that mercifully pulls us out of the brown haze only 26 1/2 minutes in. The tempo picks up again with in another way , but the...