Best albums so far this Fall, including Lucid Sins, Geese, Glass Hammer, Emil, David Eugene Edwards, Patio, The Black Waves, White Canyon & The 5th Dimension, D||E and Egyptian Blue.
In just a couple weeks, year-end lists will start coming out, and this is my first step in housekeeping before I evaluate the final releases of the year, and catch up what I missed. This year’s forecast from Thee Autumn Almanac includes plenty of gloomy Autumnal melancholy from Graveyard, Lucid Sins, David Eugene Edwards, The Keening, and coming soon, Large Plants.
1. Spirit Adrift – Ghost at the Gallows (Century Media)
2. Graveyard – 6 (Nuclear Blast)
3. Baroness – Stone (Abraxan Hymns)
4. Lucid Sins – Dancing in the Dark (Totem Cat)
5. Geese – 3D Country (Partisan)
It’s weird that I was late to hear Geese’s 2021 debut album Projector, because I make a special effort to hear ALL the post-punk. It’s a promising debut, with extra doses of goofy weirdness and an adventurous willingness for experimentation that aligns the Brooklynites with young bands across the pond, Black Midi, Black Country New Roads and Squid. Their second album expands their repertoire far beyond art punk into a kind of spastic roots/Southern/country rock that distinctly reminds me of the chaotic swagger of early White Denim. Like James Petralli, vocalist Cameron Winter can nimbly shift from wacky vocals along the lines of Jon Wahl of Claw Hammer to elegant falsetto notes worthy of, if not Jeff Buckley, then Thom Yorke. Both bands are drawing from the chooglin’ jams of Meat Puppets, and this is a very good direction indeed. I’d been wringing my hands waiting for a new White Denim album, but since June 23 this album has been waving at me, yo, dumbass, listen over here! As a nice bonus, they released the EP 4D Country on October 13.
6. Glass Hammer – Arise (Glass Hammer)
31 years in, Chattanooga’s Glass Hammer continue their creative roll with some of their best work. Just a year after completing their ambitious Skallagrim trilogy, they pivoted to an equally impressive space rock opera. Yes, there are whooshy keyboards, of course. But their brand of psychedelic space rock is filtered through their distinctive brand of symphonic prog enhanced with some metallic doom crunch. On “Arion (18 Delphini b),” Steve Babb is given the vocoder treatment a la ELO, though Hannah Pyror handles much of the vocal heavy lifting as on the previous two albums. A.R.I.S.E. (Android Research Initiative for Space Exploration) follows the mission of spacecraft Daedalus that vaguely infers some kind of emotional, romantic dalliances with cyborgs and aliens before the doomed mission flickers out, only sporadically emitting intermittent ghost transmissions. “The Return Of Daedalus” is a 16:50 long monster jam focusing on interplay between Reese Boyd’s guitar and Babb on bass.
7. Emile – Spirit (Heavy Psych)
When Emile Bureau released his debut solo album The Black Spider (2020), it was in conjunction with his Denmark based band The Sonic Dawn’s fourth album, Enter the Mirage (2020). This time around we don’t get the double deal, but we do get some increasingly impressive songwriting. Emile’s solo psychedelic folk maintains a recognizably fluid sense of flow while subtly incorporating elements of south Asian classical and Brazilian bossa nova. His surreal ruminations on nature and the cosmos are luminescent and highly addictive. The Italian Heavy Psych Sounds label is more associated with an impressively consistently high quality heavy stoner psych. Fans should take the leap of faith and try out the gentler side of psychedelia here. Fingers crossed The Sonic Dawn’s fifth album is just around the corner.
8. David Eugene Edwards – Hyacinth (Sargent House)
The prolific David Eugene Edwards is responsible for approximately 20 albums between Sixteen Horsepower, Wovenhand and collaborations. Fans of his influential folk noir and gothic Americana should appreciate this psych folk adorned with a gloomy shroud of gothic country. The atmospherics are assisted by Ben Chisholm (Converge, Chelsea Wolfe) and a layer of electronics informed by post-industrial and darkwave, something he’s dabbled in on later Wovenhand and a collaboration with Crime & the City Solution’s Alexandre Hacke on Risha (2018). Inspired both by a vision and the Greek myth of Apollo and Hyacinthus and other ancient folklore, his solo debut finds Edwards more inspired than he’s been in years. Predictably, the album was completely ignored by NPR Music and Pitchfork on it’s release, and instead got reviews exclusively from metal blogs, and one metal glossie, Metal Hammer. Apparently only metal fans understand and appreciate Edwards’ intensity.
9. Patio – Collection (Fire Talk)
I don’t know if it was planned, but I suspect a perverse humor involved in choosing both the band and album names, as a Google search results mainly in ads for patio furniture. True to the self-deprecating subtlety of bands I’ve associated with Trip Jam (post-punk informed by post-90s loose grooves, trip hop slowcore and dream pop) over the years Patio continue to sing softly and carry a fluffy stick. Starting with a spare, core bass and drum sound inspired by ESG, jangle pop, and The Breeders’ Pod (1990), the sound overall is quite beautiful, with only occasional slashing guitar and pointed lyric to hint at the presence of some seething rage. Compared to Luxury EP (2016) and Essentials (2019), their second full-length expands its repertoire with more complex rhythms and changes, and a simultaneously more abstract and progressive songwriting approach. Close and repeated listens reveal unfolding layers under the simplicity, which is probably why this album has been completely overlooked. There’s just too much music to wade through in an era where the majority of gatekeepers are suffering from atrocious tastes right now. It’s hard to say if Patio’s music will become fashionable like how The Raincoats found their audience a decade later, but I hope so.
10. The Black Waves – Sonic Maze (Silver Factory)
Things move slowly for French psych noir/shoegaze band The Black Waves. After forming in 2008, it took them five years to release their debut album, Thousands of Visions (2013). While other bands formed during that time are on their fourth through seventh albums, we’re finally getting the follow-up from the debut a decade later. Inspired by The Black Angels and Warlocks, Sonic Maze doesn’t tweak the formula too much, serving up wave after wave of dense, dark distortion on top of some pretty accessible hooks and melodies, but shifting the focus from post-punk elements to a full-on heavy reverb guitar smoke show. David Brasseur’s vocals on “All the Colors of the Dark” bring to mind Peter Murphy on early Bauhaus tracks. “Cheating Death in the Outterspace” sounds like it could be a sprawling 10+ minute space rock excursion, but they keep it at a succinct 4 minutes, with the entire album just over half the length of their debut.
11. White Canyon & The 5th Dimension – Gardeners of the Earth (White Canyon)
White Canyon & The 5th Dimension are married couple Léo Gudan, Gabriela Zaith from São Thomé das Letras, Brazil. I was stoked to discover them earlier this year with their instrumental kosmische/progressive electronic album Soundtrack for Astral Travel (2022), then circled back to their 2019 self-titled debut and Spectral Illusion (2021), both gorgeous hybrids of garage psych and shoegaze. On their fourth album, the couple expand their repertoire with a nod to the heavy Afro-Brazilian bass drum sound of the tamborim, along with Eastern melodies that place them as contemporaries with celebrated artists like Kikagaku Moyo and Upupayāma. The result is the band’s most mature, diverse album that evokes the pastoral beauty of their small town and hazy shoegaze space rock informed by music from around the planet.
12. DIIE – The Right Hand of the Devil (Mpls Ltd)
For their first two EPs and debut album in 2015-17, Minneapolis band DIIE (or D||E) described their sound as ghostly motorik and krautpunk. That’s about right, a mix of garage psych, kosmische, shoegaze, ambient and “desert jazz” with a bit more wildly experimental approach than better known bands from that era. Since then, they’ve been immersed in a series of EPs and an album centered on Diiemetrics, a “non-denominational” satire of cults like Scientology. Diiemetrics Totale, released August 14, is described as “lengthy spiritual journeys meant to help listeners commune with the mysteries of the divine,” incorporating more diverse influences like Trans Am, Air, Kikagaku Moyo, and Yellow Magic Orchestra among others. It’s worth a listen for sure, but I’m more excited for their latest release issued on Halloween, which feels more like a full album project with a story about a spurned youth who turns to dark forces for revenge. The band cites Hammer Horror and Giallo as influences, but the approach is recognizably the band’s trademark garage psych/kosmische style, though with some of the most heaviest rocking tracks they’ve done so far. The highlight is clearly the 11:49 centerpiece, “Failures (of Body and Mind),” a sprawling, swirling epic of shoegaze tinged space rock rooted in existential horror. Also released in September is the fourth album by guitarist Ali Jaafar’s sludgegaze project, Another Heaven.
13. Egyptian Blue – A Living Commodity (Yala!)
Every year the UK churns out a handful of young post-punk/art punk bands with grand ambitions, and I love it. Sure, many don’t match the initial hype and sink to obscurity, but the promise of fresh takes on a genre that still has plenty of potential is still exciting. Brighton’s Egyptian Blue is not one of the bands that benefited from any hype that I can tell, perhaps because their progress was stalled by the pandemic. They released two EPs of bristling art punk and energetic dance punk in 2019-20 and their full-length debut delivers on the promise. For the most part, the band stick to pummeling rhythms and slashing guitars, with a couple of exceptions like the quietly shimmering “Apparent Cause” and the atmospheric title track, which nods toward the later work of Bloc Party and Fontaines D.C., though the second half injects a lot more noise and passion. The cohesiveness of the album is perhaps why the band isn’t being overly hyped, because there are no overreaches into brutal jazz prog or overtly pretentious literary aspirations, not that their lyrics are lacking for insightful introspection. Fingers crossed that when the band does evolve, they don’t lose the youthful fire that so many bands that preceded them have. | Buy (Just as I was about to purchase the album on Bandcamp, the page was taken down. That’s extremely annoying, because I haven’t found anywhere else I can simply buy a reasonably priced FLAC download).
Bubbling Under
Druid Fluids – Then, Now, Again & Again (Copperfeast)
Another psychedelic band from Australia? Bring it on! Druid Fluids is essentially a bloke named Jamie Andrews from Adelaide who spent six years crafting this debut. Definitely time well spent, as it’s a magnificent specimen of sixties style psychedelic rock and psych prog with some jazzy swing. Occasionally, such as at the end of “Timeline” and “Sour’s Happy Fantasy,” he’ll break out in fuzzy doom riffing. “Jazzy” is a 2:18 instrumental showing off Andrews’ jazzy chops, a bit too on the nose. What I’d like to hear more of are his exquisitely constructed pop songs with lots of changes and imaginative production. Thankfully, the album has plenty of them, a top notch debut.
Spiritual Cramp – Spiritual Cramp (Blue Grape)
When I was enamored by the 2017 debut EP Mass Hysteria by San Francisco’s Spiritual Cramp, I figured a debut full-length would be just around the corner. Six years later it’s finally here, and while some edges are smoothed out, the band’s repertoire is still an eclectic mix of post-hardcore, Oi, 2-Tone, garage/post-punk and melodic indie rock. After an intro that touches briefly on dub reggae, “Blowback” takes off with a rhythmic vocal approach that reminds me of Franz Ferdinand.
The Heavy Minds – Beyond Gloom (StoneFree)
You can’t underestimate the value of great album art. It can shape expectations, and even affect how people hear the music. Austria’s The Heavy Minds have well designed covers and fonts that bring to mind some of the best looking titles on labels like Elektrohasch and El Paraiso. The music on their three albums is less meticulous and fine-tuned, with a looser garage psych approach, and touches of prog. The song quality is consistently great, reminding me of some of the better tracks by the Oh Sees, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard and early Tame Impala with extra heavy fuzz.
Howling Giant – Glass Future (Magnetic Eye)
My honorable cronies in doom at Doom Charts know a thing or two about great stoner psych, and this album topped the October chart. It started out lower on my list only because I simply forgot who they were, and was in the process of plowing through dozens of albums. I definitely tagged this one to return back to, and sure enough, after revisiting my library, I remembered how promising the Nashville band’s debut The Space Between Worlds (2019) was, and the exciting progression on the split album with Sergeant Thunderhoof, TURNED TO STONE Chapter 2: Masamune & Muramasa (2020), presenting the story of two legendary Japanese sword smiths. Despite the fact that they turned in a 19:42 long track, Howling Giant aren’t really a prog band. But their heavy stoner psych subtly leans in that direction on their second full length, just as Elder started to do on their second album. Top heavy with the fabulous “Siren Song,” the album locks into an orbital groove that rewards close listens with gorgeous guitar tones and harmonized vocals. In the future, apparently there are dragons on space!
Futuropaco – Fortezza di Vetro Vol. 1 (El Paraiso)
A new release on the Danish El Paraiso label is always something to anticipate and celebrate. The label has slowed down somewhat in the past couple years, making every new release all that more exciting. Justin Pinkerton was a key member of the Bay Area band Golden Void with Isaiah Mitchell (Earthless), who released two of my favorite albums of the 2010s. Disappointment over that band’s breakup was eventually tempered by Pinkerton joining the El Paraiso roster, with a solo progressive electronic/ambient album Aak’Ab (2020) and his instrumental psych jam project Futuropaco. Following up the 2018 self-titled debut, he expands his global reach, incorporating Turkish Saz to his percussive, funky compositions augmented with Moog synths. I can recognize some Afrobeat rhythms, but also a kind of Italian Euro-funk. Yeah, I just made that up. The point is that Pinkerton doesn’t sound like anyone else, and like all El Paraiso records, it sounds amazing.
The Keening – Little Bird (Relapse)
SubRosa was such an important, adventurous band in the doom metal scene that helped expand the genre in multiple directions. It was a crushing loss when their broke up in 2019, which makes the first album from former member Rebecca Vernon such an event. Of course such a restless creative spirit such as Vernon wouldn’t want to revisit past glories, instead pushing forward into an alluringly ethereal hybrid of dark chamber folk, psych noir and post-rock. Co-produced by Billy Anderson and Nathan Carson (Witch Mountain), this is gloriously gloomy autumnal music that evokes the forests of the Pacific Northwest where it was recorded.
Church of Misery – Born Under a Mad Sign (Rise Above)
This album came out in June but it gradually crawled its way up the list, knife in it’s teeth, dispatching competition along the way. Yes, Japan’s Church of Misery are obsessed with serial killers, who, of course, are largely based in the good ol’ U.S. of A. It can be a squirm-inducing topic, but over the summer I got sucked into a couple documentaries, including Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer. And while I have a low threshold for sludge metal fatigue, Church of Misery albums stand the test of time, and this is a good one, in their top half of releases, chock full of riffs and great production.
Flyying Colours – You Never Know (Poison City)
Melbourne shoegaze / psych / dream pop / jangle pop.
Giöbia – Acid Disorder (Heavy Psych)
Italian kosmische / space rock / psych prog.
Restless Spirit – Afterimage (Magnetic Eye)
Up and coming heavy metal from N.Y.C. with some sludge and doom. RIYL Black Sabbath, Type O Negative, The Sword, Mastodon, Spirit Adrift.
Nemegata – Voces (Nemegata)
Austin based global/LatinX garage psych band.
The Coral – Sea of Mirrors (Run On)
The follow-up to their brilliant double album Coral Island (2021) is more top notch psych/baroque pop and jangle pop. A sort of bonus companion record, Holy Joe’s Coral Island Medicine Show is worth checking out too.
The Stayres – The Stayres (Stayres)
Austin band with some really great garage rock. It’s exciting to hear Mike Nicolai (The Draghounds) with a rock band again after decades as mostly a solo artist. This came out the same day as Wilco’s album, and this is better.
Vanishing Kids – Miracle of Death (Aural Music)
Anticipated sixth album from Madison, WI band relocated to Portland. A unique mix of psych doom/prog and shoegaze.
Maggot Heart – Hunger (Svart/Rapid Eye)
Third album from Linnéa Olsson and associates based in Germany. Garage & Psych Noir / Post-Punk / Noise Rock.
Legendry – Time Immortal Wept (No Remorse)
Epic Heavy Metal and Power Metal from Pittsburgh. Third and best album.
Blood Lightning – Blood Lightning (Ripple)
Boston based heavy metal / proto-metal supergroup with members of Gozu, Sam Black Church, Worshipper, and We’re All Gonna Die.
Tomb Mold – The Enduring Spirit (20 Buck Spin)
Toronto technical death metal band’s fourth album is best yet.
Demons My Friends – Demons Seem to Gather (Gravitoyd)
Members of Mexican alt-metal band QBO and Washington, DC desert rockers Fellowcraft met at SXSW and jammed, returned to Red Nova Ranch in Cedar Creek to record with Jeff Henson (Duel, Spirit Adrift, Clutch).
The fun doesn’t need to end there. If you’re like me and you are able to listen to music most of the work day, there’s plenty more to enjoy, including album #16 by Tampa’s Cannibal Corpse, one of the most consistently great death metal bands ever, album number three from up and coming stoner psych band Green Lung, who have a big European tour next spring with Spirit Adrift, album #4 from Polish stoner doom Dopelord, power pop from Falling Stars, the latest global psych from the other masked Swedish anti-heroes Goat, and legendary garage noir/post-punk pioneers Crime & the City Solution. I don’t rank live albums super high, but I’ve also been enjoying the heck out of The Feelies’ live renditions of Velvet Underground songs, and The Vintage Caravan, the Icelandic hard rock band that deserves to be more popular than Greta Van Fleet, because they’re better in every way.
- Graveyard – 6 (Nuclear Blast) | Sep 29 | Sweden | Buy
- Baroness – Stone (Abraxan Hymns) | Sep 15 | USA | Bandcamp
- Lucid Sins – Dancing in the Dark (Totem Cat) | Oct 27 | UK | Bandcamp
- OMD (Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark) – Bauhaus Staircase (White Noise) | Oct 27 | UK
- La Rosa Noir – Arellano (My Grito Industries) | Oct 13 | USA
- The Belair Lip Bombs – Lush Life (Cousin Will) | Aug 25 | Australia | Bandcamp
- All Them Witches – Baker’s Dozen (ATW) | Oct 11 | USA | Stream
- Tomb Mold – The Enduring Spirit (20 Buck Spin) | Sep 15 | Canada | Bandcamp
- Egyptian Blue – A Living Commodity (Yala!) | Oct 27 | UK | Bandcamp
- Emile – Spirit (Heavy Psych) | Sep 29 | Denmark | Bandcamp
- Howling Giant – Glass Future (Magnetic Eye) | Oct 27 | USA | Bandcamp
- David Eugene Edwards – Hyacinth (Sargent House) | Sep 29 | USA | Bandcamp
- Patio – Collection (Fire Talk) | Sep 22 | USA | Bandcamp
- Glass Hammer – Arise (Glass Hammer) | Oct 27 | USA | Bandcamp
- din-din – din-din (Splithand) | Oct 28 | USA | Bandcamp
- The Black Waves – Sonic Maze (Silver Factory) | Oct 06 | France | Bandcamp
- Sonic Jesus – Badway (Fuzz Club) | Oct 06 | Italy | Bandcamp
- Blood Incantation – Luminescent Bridge EP (Century Media) | Sep 15 | USA | Bandcamp
- DIIE – The Right Hand of the Devil (Mpls Ltd) | Oct 31 | USA | Bandcamp
- Mondo Drag – Through the Hourglass (RidingEasy) | Sep 15 | USA | Bandcamp
- The Treasures Of Mexico – Burn the Jets (Spinout Nuggets) | Aug 31 | UK | Bandcamp
- Sorcerer – Reign of the Reaper (Metal Blade) | Oct 27 | Sweden | Bandcamp
- Druid Fluids – Then, Now, Again & Again (Copperfeast) | Oct 27 | Australia | Bandcamp
- Rival Sons – Lightbringer (Atlantic) | Oct 20 | USA | Buy
- Hilary Woods – Acts of Light (Sacred Bones) | Nov 03 | Ireland | Bandcamp
- Legendry – Time Immortal Wept (No Remorse) | Oct 27 | USA | Bandcamp
- Frankie & The Witch Fingers – Data Doom (Reverberation Appreciation Society) | Sep 01 | USA | Bandcamp
- The Dear Hunter – Migrant Returned (Equal Vision) | Oct 06 | USA
- The Coral – Sea of Mirrors (Run On) | Sep 08 | UK | Buy
- Hotline TNT – Cartwheel (Third Man) | Nov 03 | USA | Bandcamp
- Spiritual Cramp – Spiritual Cramp (Blue Grape) | Nov 03 | USA | Bandcamp
- The Heavy Minds – Beyond Gloom (StoneFree) | Oct 06 | Austria | Bandcamp
- Futuropaco – Fortezza di Vetro Vol. 1 (El Paraiso) | Oct 13 | USA | Buy
- The Keening – Little Bird (Relapse) | Oct 06 | USA | Bandcamp
- Kerrigan – Bloodmoon (HR) | Sep 22 | Germany | Bandcamp
- Green Lung – This Heathen Land (Nuclear Blast) | Nov 03 | UK | Bandcamp
- Nemegata – Voces (Nemegata) | Sep 15 | USA | Bandcamp
- Hallows – A Quieter Life (Artoffact) | Aug 26 | USA | Bandcamp
- Final Gasp – Mourning Moon (Relapse) | Sep 22 | USA | Bandcamp
- Vanishing Kids – Miracle of Death (Aural Music) | Oct 13 | USA | Bandcamp
- Throat – We Must Leave You (Svart) | Oct 27 | Finland | Bandcamp
- Maggot Heart – Hunger (Svart/Rapid Eye) | Sep 29 | Germany | Bandcamp
- WE Are The Asteroid – WATA You, A Lion Tamer? (Bad Rope) | Oct 06 | USA | Bandcamp
- Axis: Sova – Blinded by Oblivion (Drag City) | Oct 06 | USA | Bandcamp
- The Sand Pebbles – The Antagonist (Donovan’s Brain) | Oct 06 | Australia | Bandcamp
- Catatonic Suns – Catatonic Suns (Agitated) | Sep 29 | USA | Bandcamp
- C.O.F.F.I.N – Australia Stops (Legless) | Sep 15 | Australia | Bandcamp
- ML Buch – Suntub (15 Love) | Oct 27 | Denmark | Bandcamp
- Lewsberg – Out and About (12XU) | Sep 15 | Netherlands | Bandcamp
- Restless Spirit – Afterimage (Magnetic Eye) | Oct 06 | USA | Bandcamp
- Blood Lightning – Blood Lightning (Ripple) | Oct 20 | USA | Bandcamp
- King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard – Live in Chicago ’23 (Needlejuice) | Aug 31 | Australia | Bandcamp
- The Chronicles of Father Robin – The Songs & Tales of Airoea – Book I (Karisma) | Sep 15 | Norway | Bandcamp
- Cigarette Camp – Chalk EP (Dead Broke) | Sep 18 | USA | Bandcamp
- Acid Rooster – Flowers & Dead Souls (Sunhair) | Aug 25 | Germany | Bandcamp
- Demons My Friends – Demons Seem to Gather (Gravitoyd) | Sep 08 | USA | Bandcamp
- Another Heaven – IV: Heaven Sent (Mpls Ltd) | Sep 22 | USA | Bandcamp
- Deeper – Careful! (Sub Pop) | Sep 08 | USA | Bandcamp
- The Loving Paupers – Ladders (Easy Star) | Sep 15 | USA | Bandcamp
- The Routes – Reverberation Addict (Topsy-Turvy) | Oct 06 | Japan | Bandcamp
- Fearing – Destroyer (Profound Lore) | Sep 29 | USA | Bandcamp
- Domkraft – Sonic Moons (Magnetic Eye) | Sep 08 | Sweden | Bandcamp
- Dopelord – Songs for Satan (Blues Funeral) | Oct 06 | Poland | Bandcamp
- Gong – Unending Ascending (Snapper) | Nov 03 | UK | Bandcamp
- Soft Serve – Soft Covers (Little Lunch) | Oct 06 | Australia | Bandcamp
- Crime & the City Solution – The Killer (Mute) | Oct 20 | Australia | Bandcamp
- Goat – Medicine (Rocket) | Oct 13 | Sweden | Bandcamp
- Coventry – Our Lady of Perpetual Health (Septic Jukebox) | Sep 19 | USA | Bandcamp
- KEN mode – VOID (Artoffact) | Sep 22 | Canada | Bandcamp
- Krypta – Outo laakso (Svart) | Nov 03 | Finland | Bandcamp
- Cirith Ungol – Dark Parade (Metal Blade) | Oct 20 | USA | Bandcamp
- Jalen Ngonda – Come Around and Love Me (Daptone) | Sep 08 | UK | Bandcamp
- Vision Master – Sceptre (Cruz del Sur) | Aug 25 | USA | Bandcamp
- Helms Deep – Treacherous Ways (Nameless Grave) | Sep 05 | UK | Bandcamp
- EXEK – The Map and the Territor (EXEK) | Oct 06 | Australia | Bandcamp
- The Belair Lip Bombs – Lush Life (Cousin Will) | Aug 25 | Australia | Bandcamp
- Wayfarer – American Gothic (Profound Lore) | Oct 27 | USA | Bandcamp
- The Stayres – The Stayres (Stayres) | Sep 30 | USA | Bandcamp
- Falling Stars – Lonely No More (Tee Pee) | Oct 27 | USA
- The Third Mind – The Third Mind 2 (Yep Roc) | Oct 27 | USA | Bandcamp
- Carlton Melton – Turn to Earth (Agitated) | Oct 06 | USA | Bandcamp
- The Vacant Lots – Interiors (Fuzz Club) | Oct 13 | USA | Bandcamp
- Truth Club – Running From the Chase (Double Double Whammy) | Oct 06 | USA | Bandcamp
- Jordsjø – Salighet (Karisma) | Oct 06 | Norway | Bandcamp
- Seablite – Lemon Lights (Mt. St. Mtn.) | Sep 29 | USA | Bandcamp
- Population II – Électrons libres du qu?é?bec (Bonsound) | Oct 06 | Canada | Bandcamp
- Twin Temple – God is Dead (Pentagrammation) | Oct 13 | USA | Buy
- The Guru Guru – Make (Less) Babies (Hummus) | Oct 27 | Belgium | Bandcamp
- Dream Nails – Doom Loop (Marshall) | Oct 13 | UK | Bandcamp
- Melenas – Ahora (Trouble In Mind) | Sep 29 | Spain | Bandcamp
- Fin Del Mundo – Todo va hacia el mar (Fin Del Mundo) | Nov 03 | Argentina | Bandcamp
- Jack Browning – Red Eye Radio (R&D) | Sep 29 | UK | Bandcamp
- Geese – 4D Country EP (Partisan) | Oct 13 | USA | Bandcamp
- The Black Heart Death Cult – Pin Drops EP (Zenith) | Oct 27 | Australia | Bandcamp
- Institute – Ragdoll Dance (La Vida Es un Mus) | Oct 13 | USA | Bandcamp
- Thriller – Street Metal (Fucking Kill) | Oct 21 | Germany | Bandcamp
- Drop Nineteens – Hard Light (Wharf Cat) | Nov 03 | USA | Bandcamp
- Disguised Malignance – Entering the Gateways (Prosthetic) | Sep 29 | USA | Bandcamp
- Heavy Load – Riders of the Ancient Storm (No Remorse) | Oct 06 | Sweden | Buy
- Laurel Halo – Atlas (Awe) | Sep 22 | USA | Bandcamp
Coming Up
When I first read that the second Large Plants album would be based on sessions recorded during the first album, I was concerned it wouldn’t be as good. But Jack Sharp did add more songs to reflect his evolution, so that it has a “folkier, proggier, more fantastic feel” than the heavier biker rock of the debut The Carrier, which made Fester’s Lucky 13. It sounds like it could potentially be better! Sharp thought it important to share that all tracks were recorded in a dirty metal shack full of rusty junk that gave them a weirdly great, rustic sound, and has since been demolished. Let’s hope that doesn’t mean the chapter is fully closed on his psych/prog noir phase and he’s going full on electronic like so many artists. While a live lineup has settled on Paul Milne (bass and vocals), Joe Wooley (guitar) and Itamar Rubinger (drums), the recordings are mainly Jack Sharp. I’ve seen Wolf People’s separation described as a hiatus rather than break up, but if Large Plants continues to grow from Sharp’s vision, that’s good enough for me.
