Every week, Friday is the big release day for new music, but I usually get a slow trickle of some cool albums I like starting as early as Monday. This week, though? A mix of crickets and trash. At least of the stuff I was coming across. That had me worried we were going to have a slight lull this week. But to quote the band Yeasayer — silly me. I should have known better, gang.
Cuz Thursday afternoon hit and my friends at the excellent French label Araki Records came through for me with a double drop — one rerelease of a dope 2022 album I never heard before (I’m assuming to get it on vinyl where it hadn’t been before) and another totally new release that happens to be the Coolest Album of the Week. Does it matter that even the new release technically came out on March 1st? Nah, because they didn’t email me about that fucker until Thursday, so that’s on them. And I have a pretty lax window for this column — it’s more about when I check this shit out than when it drops. As long as it’s within like a month or so of the present, we’re good.
And oh boy, we continued to be good into Friday and the weekend when the good albums just kept coming. I have a lot good recs this week. Make sure you check them all out and don’t just skip to the mini review for the Coolest Album of the Week. They’re all cool, so listen to them, assholes.
Okay, let’s get started with…
The Coolest Stuff of The Week | March 13th
astrel k – The Foreign Department
Genres: Indie pop, lofi, experimental
Frau Trofea – Premier sang
Genres: Punk, noise pop, rock in opposition
Tomato Flower – No
Genres: Pop, shoegaze, experimental
Coins Parallèles – Alter Ego Club
Genres: Avant-pop, post punk, minimal wave
L – Marilyn Monroe – All of Us
Genres: Art rock, noise, sludge, spoken word
Marry Waterson & Adrian Crowley – Cuckoo Storm
Genres: Indie-folk, folk-psych, alternative
Foncedalle – S/T
Genres: Indie, post-punk, electronic
Lamplight – S/T
Genres: Indie folk, indie pop, indie
Erika Angell – The Obsession With Her Voice
Genres: Avant-garde, pop, experimental, electronic
Choncy – 20X MULTIPLIER
Genres: Garage punk, post-punk, hardcore punk
Meril Wubslin – Faire Ça
Genres: Indie folk, indie, alternative
Kidder – ki001
Genres: Post-punk, garage punk, punk
Slags – SPOILED
Genres: Garage punk, egg-punk, noise pop
Vultures, Hyenas and Coyotes – S/T
Genres: Punk, no wave, noise rock
I’m not going to shit you, I’m glad Socrates died. Both the philosopher and the band. First off, the philosopher would be so old by now. Could you imagine being several thousand years old in a hell-body that begged for death that wouldn’t come? Nobody deserves that fate. And he got to live to a pretty good age of 71. I looked it up. Good for him.
As for the band, I only know about them because I know about their new band — Vultures, Hyenas and Coyotes, which was also the name of a 7 incher Socrates (the old band) released on New Year’s Day back in 2006. It’s a fantastic little album. Click on the link and check it out. It’s fucking great.
But this self-titled album from their new venture is on some whole other shit. And it’s not just the improved audio quality of this release (although, this sounds amazing). Every song, every moment, every progression is perfected, chaotic and on point.
I have no idea what these boys have been doing since Socrates broke up in 2009, but if I had to guess, meticulously planning their attack for this album.
Honing their abilities. Christophe F’s drumming is so relentless and brutal that it’s easy to forget there’s no bass section on this album. He’s a one man rhythm section who more than makes up for it, and when the drums drop out, it’s the equivalent to when the bass drops out in any other song, you feel its absence, and the song feels lighter in those moments before the drums come crashing mercilessly back in.
But at other teams, Christophe will also ride a groove if that’s what the song needs and let lead guitarist/vocalist Sheik Anorak’s deranged riffs bounce along the rivets in those grooves, giving space where it’s needed. Two examples of this come in the middle of the album: “Dead End Conversation” and “Untitled”. The first song is a guitar freak-out that has Anorak wailing, much like a hyena or coyote his band is named after. The second song is a more subtle affair that builds slowly, chugging along to a set groove before breaking open in the second half and chugging along again before dying. It’s strangely satisfying and leads right into the closing two tracks, which are two of the noisier songs on the album.
Underneath all the noise and screaming and amazing sense of pace, there’s something oddly catchy about all these songs, too.
This is by no means pop-punk or anything remotely like that, but if you were to take someone to a Vultures Hyenas and Coyotes show, they would probably come away with two impressions: 1. How immensely talented these two are and 2. How fun and strangely… danceable? these songs are? You could almost imagine the previous, younger incarnation of this band playing killer college house parties back in 2006, assuming that’s a thing bands do in France.
But this version? Man, too good, too polished for that. And too fucking old by now. But I bet they’re putting on killer shows, and I absolutely cannot wait to hear what Vultures Hyenas and Coyotes do next because their only limit is the power of their dreeeeaaaaammmmms. And that’s why this got Coolest Album of the Week, girlfriend.