Some weeks it’s difficult to come up with enough solid music recommendations for this column. Other times, like this week, there was so much interesting music to choose from, it was hard to narrow it down to just five. Please feel free to check my work.
1. Inhaler, If You’re Gonna Break My Heart
Cuts & Bruises (Polydor)
Recommended If You Like: A nepo baby that’s actually making it on his own
Inhaler’s second album proves that this Dublin band has substance and isn’t just getting attention because the singer’s dad is someone named Bono. Their sound is better, more complex, and more interesting, largely because guitarist Josh Jenkinson is expanding his palette of sounds. Ignore them at your peril.
2. Bad Skin, Completely Insane
Single (Dance Plant Records)
RIYL: Bands with lots of colour
Bad Skin, another new all-female band from Montreal (they gotta be friends with Les Shirley, right), sounds like they’ve been transported from 1994. Had they been around back then, they’d have made great touring mates with bands like Hole, Veruca Salt, and Julianna Hatfield. And whoever came up with the colour scheme for this video is a genius. And they still make Fibes drums?
3. Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds, Easy Now
Council Skies (Sony)
RIYL: Mournful Noel
Noel recently announced a co-headlining tour with Garbage that will take up most of the summer. Expect part of his set to be devoted to this album (out June 2) which, if the first two singles are any indication, is perhaps more Beatle-esque than anything he’s done recently. Bring in on, I say.
4. Meisha & The Spanks, It’s My Year
Unconditional Love in Hi-Fi (Mint Records)
RIYL: More fierce female-fronted rock
Coming out of Alberta, Meisha & at Spanks is an Indigenous female-front garage-punk duo that fall somewhere between The White Stripes and Royal Blood with a touch of mid-90s alt-rock. Seriously, what’s not to like? I already have this one on my summer playlist. Their year? It might be.
5. 100 gecs, Hollywood Baby
10,000 gecs (Atlantic)
RIYL: The idea of hyperpop finally breaking through
“Hyperpop?” Yep. It’s a vaguely-defined genre that first appeared in the UK that takes pop songwriting and performance and exaggerates it to the nth degree. Dylan Brady and Laura Les, the two people behind 100 gecs (the St. Louis band that has been receiving a lot of love from certain corners of the internet) have been a cult thing up until now. That may change with this record. The album will be here on March 17.
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