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Nibbles: Fucked Up's Newest Epic, KEN mode's New Noise + much more!

Sometimes, without good excuse, I'm simply too lazy to pull together proper reviews. It can be especially futile this time of year, as my thoughts turn toward summer vacation, relaxing and, thanks to the spectacle that is E3, video games. However, as difficult as it can be to muster up the headspace, there's always a little time for tunes.

With that spirit in mind, allow me to introduce you to Nibbles. Instead of forcing myself to write reviews for albums that either aren't really albums (Fucked Up), didn't hold my attention (Heartless Bastards, KENmode), or aren't streaming on Google Play, my go-to source material (Third Eye Blind), Nibbles gives me the chance to talk about new releases without the need to commit to repeat listens that take time or half-assed reviews penned without giving the music a fraction of the effort that went into making them.

This is also an excellent place to give props to one-offs, hot new singles and the like, the kind of stuff you might find in my Twitter sidebar throughout the week. Not only that, it affords me the opportunity to talk about artists I'd normally not give the time to; instead of checking things out on whims, dismissing most of them and only reporting on the ones I like, we can now check things out on whims together.

There's no telling how often these posts will come along, and this most definitely does not mean the end of reviews or my occasional Hear Me Out opinion pieces. Consider this another outlet for discussion and discovery. Oh, and there's one other part of this that some of you may enjoy, but we'll talk about that at the bottom. But first, let's get to the tunes!

THIS WEEK'S RELEASES:

FUCKED UP
Year of the Hare 12"
Deathwish

A year or so removed from their stellar fourth LP Glass Boys, Fucked Up have finally unleashed the seventh installment of their massively creative Zodiac series with Year of the Hare. This time out, they've upped the ante with an adventurous interactive video (check that out here). For the purposes of this post, I've included the two-part YouTube version.





KEN mode
Success
Season of Mist

For their sixth album, Canadian noise merchants KEN mode enlisted noted noise aficionado Steve Albini to run the boards. The result is as raucous as you'd expect, but it's also ever so slightly more melodic than past efforts. If you're an elitist snob and alarm bells are ringing in the wake of that last sentence, calm down and listen to the sinister, smashing Blessed.




HEARTLESS BASTARDS
Restless Ones
Partisan

Album #5 from Heartless Bastards builds on an increasingly formidable discography of no-frills southern-inspired rock n' roll. They won't win any awards for ingenuity, but they make up for it in passion; Erika Wennerstrom's vocals are majestic and powerful, elevating the best cuts, like the soaring Gates of Dawn.




THIRD EYE BLIND
Dopamine
Mega Collider

They may be a distant memory for most, but Third Eye Blind has managed to maintain a decent sized fan base since they fell out of favour with mainstream audiences over a decade ago. If lead single Everything Is Easy catches on, a lot more of us may be reminded of their presence.





HOT OFF THE PRESS:


FOALS
What Went Down
Transgressive

The title track from Foals' highly anticipated fourth album dropped this afternoon, and holy smokes does this one have payoff.




BECK
Dreams
Capitol

Presumably the first taste of his thirteenth studio album (the more dance-oriented one he referred to around the time of Morning Phase's release), Dreams is a boisterous funk rocker that's more akin to MGMT and like-minded modern dance rock than any of Beck's past work. That said, it's a hell of a lot of fun. And the mix is way too loud. Was Dave Fridmann behind this?




THE BLACK QUEEN
The End Where We Start

If you've ever listened to a Dillinger Escape Plan record, you know that Greg Puciato can sing as well as he can scream. With The Black Queen, his newest project (which also features Josh Eustis, best known for working with Nine Inch Nails), he's following the lead of fellow hard music frontmen like Chino Moreno. A pulsating, mechanical, chilled out tune, The End Where We Start is an intriguing taste of what's to come on the group's debut LP, due out late this year.


Now for the fun part. If you subscribe to Google Play Music, I've attached a handy dandy playlist for you to check out, featuring all of the tracks above plus a handful more that weren't talked about here. This playlist can and may fluctuate over time as well, and I'm looking into options for keeping you updated alongside it. For now, I guess I'm just too lazy.

Click here to check out the Sound Bites Nibbles Playlist on Google Play Music!

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