Five kernels of wheat sifted from more than 500 pieces of chaff that came in over the last seven days. Again, you’re welcome.
1. Airborne Toxic Event, Come On Out
Hollywood Park (Rounder Records)
Recommended If You Like: Don DeLillo novels (Sorry for the obscure reference)
Wow, it’s been a long time since we’ve heard from Mikel Jollett and crew, hasn’t it? The ATE album were the double hits of Dope Machines and Songs of God and Whiskey, both of which came out in 2015. This record will be some kind of companion piece of a memoir Jollett has written, also called Hollywood Park, which is set to be released on May 5, three days before the album. (Note that Jollett was once part of a notorious religious cult called the Church of Synanon. No wonder Oprah has expressed interest in the book.)
2. Bush, Flowers on a Grave
The Kingdom (Zuma Rock/Caroline)
RIYL: Memories of grunge-y goodness
Gavin Rossdale is back with an eighth Bush album, the first since Black and White Rainbows in 2017. The record will be out in May, about six weeks ahead of a summer tour that will also feature Breaking Benjamin and Theory of a Deadman. No Canadian dates yet, but you gotta know that something will be announced soon.
3. Hotel Mira, This Could Be It for Me
Perfectionism (Light Organ Records)
RYIL: Memories of JPNSGRLS
Starting from scratch again is hard. Remember Vancouver’s JPNSGRLS? They’ve rebooted as (sort) the same basic band but with a different name that was adopted following a near-complete restructuring of things in the spring of 2018. There was a (debut, I guess) EP two summers ago and then a full record entitled Perfectionism back on Valentine’s Day. Reviews have been uniformly good, too.
4. Bleeker, Disaster
Self-Made (Five Seven Music)
RIYL: Rock from the Canadian Shield
Speaking of bands who have had to change names, here’s Bleeker. Outside of them (ne Bleeker Street), Stephen Leacock and Gordon Lightfoot, I can’t name any other famous non-hockey-playing people to come out of Orillia, Ontario. Yet here we are with Bleeker, a band who has been hammering away on the Canadian rock scene for nearly twenty years now. Their sixth album (second as just Bleeker) is ready for release on May 1.
Winnetka Bowling League, CVS
Remember You EP (RCA Records)
RIYL: Er, songs about American drugstore chains?
Wait. Did they shoot this video in an actual CVS Pharmacy? And is that actually Hillary Duff making a cameo as a pharmacist? Yes on both counts. And what’s with all the prerequisites laid down by corporate head office in exchange for letting the band film a video on of their stores? (Points to those who spotted Christopher Mintz-Plasse from Superbad in the clip, too.)
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