SOUND BITES

  When last I heard John Reis' name in relation to new music, I was discussing the triumphant return of Hot Snakes back in 2018; Jericho Sirens marked a welcome return for one of his more renowned bands, Reis having also been involved in the creation of some twenty combined albums across his eight projects (also including influential groups Drive Like Jehu and Rocket From the Crypt). One of his newest endeavors saw him collaborating with surf punks The Blind Shake for 2015 instrumental album Modern Surf Classics , which sounds pretty much exactly as badass as you think it does. Now, more than thirty years removed from his first foray into recorded music, Swami John Reis comes roaring back with his first true, official solo album; Ride the Wild Night is a free-wheeling half hour of no-muss, no-fuss rock that draws influence from his past projects and his own influences alike. There's a lot of classic garage rock and punk to be gleaned from Ride the Wild Night , its ten tracks ...

  The "back to your roots" album can be a tricky thing to market; whenever you (or a critic, or a fan) claim this when talking about a new album, especially one that comes some twenty years after the roots in question, there's going to be some added scrutiny. In Frank Turner's case, these roots are in Million Dead, a post-hardcore outfit that released two records (2003's A Song to Ruin and 2005's Harmony No Harmony ) before breaking up; they were well-revered in their native England, and I don't think I'm stepping too far out of line when I say that many considered Million Dead a Brit counterpart to influential American acts like At the Drive-In. Since Million Dead's demise, Frank Turner has gone on to forge a very respectable solo career while prolifically creating smart, earnest songs that have far more in common with folk than hardcore; while Turner has occasionally incorporated some rough edges into his work, the majority of his eight previous...

  Listening to Eddie Vedder's third solo album planted a seed of wonder into my crazed Pearl Jam fan brain as it pertains to Gigaton , their 2020 album, something that hadn't clicked until I heard Earthling ; I have to wonder if this whole Pearl Jam thing is any fun for Vedder anymore. Thinking back to the heavy-hearted, mostly solemn and super serious tracks on that album and comparing it to Earthling 's wide-eyed, playful and exploratory energy, the latter record is starkly different not just from recent Pearl Jam records, but Vedder's other solo records as well. Having previously only ventured outside his main gig for the folky, mostly acoustic Into the Wild soundtrack in 2007 and the gimmicky but sweet Ukulele Songs in 2011 (plus a handful of one-off singles), this time out Vedder's supported by an entirely new band of co-creators. Aided by producer Andrew Watt and Red Hot Chili Peppers alumni Josh Klinghoffer and Chad Smith (and a few notable guests, which we...

  Spurred by relocating back to Texas and getting interrupted by a pandemic during recording, Spoon's tenth album was a long time coming; its nearly five year gap from previous outing Hot Thoughts marks the widest gap between albums to date. These events also led to a refocusing of the band's sound, leaning into a looser, more rock n' roll aesthetic. It's possible, actually, that Lucifer On the Sofa may be the purest rock record Spoon has ever created; that's not to say that this record is a wall-to-wall fist-bumping anthems, but there is certainly less atmosphere and sonic world-building than we've heard from the traditionally restless explorers in quite some time. It's not necessarily a bad thing, especially when these excursions into more traditional rock territory are as thrilling as The Hardest Cut , a downtuned, sludgy boogie that plays like a meaner and more well-spoken incarnation of ZZ Top. It's a true outlier in Spoon's discography, but o...

  Big Thief, to this point, have kind of always done this albums thing in pairs; their first two, 2016's Masterpiece and 2017's Capacity , share much of the same sonic mojo (though there is undeniable progression between the albums as well), while their third and fourth ( U.F.O.F. and Two Hands ) were released just five months apart. All the while, they've built up a devoted following with their raw, open-hearted folk/indie rock; with their profile continuing to rise, then, it kind of makes sense that Big Thief would expand their fifth album out to a double album. The wonderfully, whimsically titled Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You feels much like its cover, so as to say it combines the earthy and celestial, the current and the past, around the campfire; compared to earlier works, the majority of their fifth album feels, above all else, more intimate. There's less intensity and more openness, with imperfections (such as studio chatter and tape hiss) allowed t...

  It's been just under a decade now since Alt-J burst onto the scene, armed with a tidal wave of Great British Hype and backed up by their own art school ostentatiousness; An Awesome Wave thrilled indie critics eager for the chance to break the next Arcade Fire, and their impressive (albeit somewhat try-hard) debut went on to earn them a rabid fanhood and the 2012 Mercury Prize (Britain's annual award for Best Album) and the prestige that comes with it. They followed it up two years later with This Is All Yours , which saw them diving headfirst into their dullest pretenses and making a begrudging concession to their American label; Left Hand Free , at first spoken of disparagingly by its creators, would be more accepted by the band once it became a hit, helping to sell a record that wouldn't be nearly as easy to sell without it and culminating with a Grammy nomination and a headlining gig at Madison Square Garden. For their next trick, 2017's Relaxer , they were a litt...

  In a short handful of years, Manuel Gagneux has firmly established Zeal & Ardor as one of heavy music's most intriguing acts; fusing African American spiritual dirges with incendiary black metal overtones, the project earned impressive amounts of acclaim and attention for their first two records, Devil Is Fine and Stranger Fruit , released in 2016 and 2018 respectively. While working on album three the world was plunged into a raging pandemic and, in the U.S., the Black Lives Matter movement was thrust to the forefront of discussion after yet another tragic murder of a Black man by police. In the fall of 2020, Zeal & Ardor dropped Wake of a Nation , a brief EP in lieu of the third album instead representing an immediate response to the events surrounding George Floyd's death. It also represented a stylistic contrast from previous material by rooting its themes in current events rather than recalling the dark era of slavery. It also featured Vigil , an utterly crushin...

The sophomore record from UK buzz band Black Country, New Road didn't enter the world in the usual way; rather than the typical glut of interviews and performances that arrive with the release of a highly anticipated album, Ants From Up There releases just days after the announcement of guitarist/vocalist Isaac Wood's departure from the group. Citing mental health-related reasons while stressing the split as amicable (and reassuring fans that the band will continue without him), the shock announcement pulls into focus the effects of this industry's intense pressures while perhaps offering unintentional context to the contents of Ants From Up There . When compared to For the First Time , an Album of the Year contender from just last year, Ants From Up There seems a bit more restrained and willing to approach more conventional structures while maintaining their uniqueness; this was made clear by incredible lead single Chaos Space Marine , a restless and fluid indie rocker t...

Among the throng of nu-metal bands that sprung up in the wake of the alternative era some 20-25 years ago, not many would have pegged Korn as a band to carve out a long career, especially considering they basically started this whole movement way back in 1994; by the time they were on their sixth album in 2003, they were thought of in most circles as washed up and irrelevant, dinosaurs whose sole purpose was passing the torch to the Linkin Parks of the world. For a while, that was pretty much the story: trail blazing band blazes trail, then stumbles and lays helplessly in said trail. Somewhat of an identity crisis ensued, with Korn spending about a decade struggling to break into new sonic areas while being pulled back to their core sound by their most closed-minded fans, then being derided for rehashing their glory days. This is literally what happened to them when they dabbled in dubstep for 2011's The Path of Totality then returned to familiar ground on 2013's The Paradigm ...