I saw my first back-to-school ad this past week. Geez, the kids have only been out for a couple of weeks. Can we maybe slow down a bit? It’s enough that we have to discuss album releases for the fall already.
1. Metric, Just the Once
Formentera II (Frontside)
Recommended If You Like: More Formentera but more positive
Well, that’s a nice surprise. On the first anniversary of the release of Formentera, Metric’s eighth album comes word of…a sequel?…a second volume? However you want to categorize it, Formentera II is the happier counterpoint to the previous record, something that was born out of the pandemic. The band describes this song as “regret disco,” the need to “dance yourself clean.”
2. Bend Sinister, Price You Pay
Single (Cordova Bay Records)
RIYL: Summer anthems
Vancouver’s Bend Sinister is closing in on a quarter-century together and in that time, they’ve seen a lot of highways and back roads. This track just screams “summer roadtrip” with echoes of 70s icons like the Doobie Brothers and Jackson Browne. (I kept expecting them to break into China Grove). Nice shout-out to Grand Prairie, Alberta, too.
3. Courtney Barnett, Start Somewhere, Life Balance, First Slow
End of the Day (Milk! Records/Mom + Pop Records)
RIYL: Instrumental albums
This is bold: An all-instrumental album from a woman known for her way with words. The album (due on September 8) is being introduced with these three tracks. There are fourteen more instrumentals, all with origins in some improvisations she did for the score of a documentary about her called Anonymous Club. This visualization video gives us an idea of what to expect.
4. Jakobs Castle, Time Traveler
Single (Epitaph)
RIYL: Offspring
Jakob Nowell, was just a baby when his dad, Bradley Nowell of Sublime, died of a drug overdose in a California hotel. Not only is he now a working musician, but he’s also collaborating with people like Tim Armstrong of Rancid, someone his dad knew well. (Armstrong is the co-writer of this track.) One generation passes and another rises.
5. The Struts, Too Good at Raising Hell
Single (Big Machine/John Vavartos)
RIYL: More 70s throwbacks
In another universe, this might have been an Aerosmith single or maybe a J Geils album track. Instead, this bluesy track was run through British indie sensibilities instead of the bars of Boston. Gotta love the line “Sex so good makes the neighbours smoke a cigarette/But I’m still bored to death.” Love the swaggering horns, too.
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