Page 12
Dispatches from the Highlands
$4.20 Cents
Album Notes from Erickson “The Soundtrack to your Chill”
Je Rosenstock HELLMODE DIY and punk at heart, Je Rosen- stock created the rst pay what you want record label back in 2006, and
Bombay Bicycle Club My Big Day Following a three(ish)-year
now the h album under his own name is the most professional (and expensive) thing he's done. HELLMODE is anthemic and, yes, pop punk, but, as Rosenstock himself says, "I feel like in 2023, you can write an unabashedly poppy punk song and it’s probably not gonna be on the radio anyway, so it doesn’t feel like a sellout move." Not that anyone would ever accuse the man who gives everything away of selling out.
hiatus, and nearly six years a er their pre- vious album, Bombay
Bicycle Club's 2020 return on Everything Else Has Gone Wrong felt like a band reunited yet uninspired. Not great, not bad, just playing it safe. October's My Big Day su ers no such hesitancy. Perhaps it's the con dence earned through a superior batch of songs. Maybe it's the extra juice from a surprising range of guests (including Jay Som, Chaka Khan, and Damon Albarn) that elevate their respective tracks. But My Big Day draws the London quartet back towards the territory explored on So Long, See You Tomorrow , still their masterpiece, while also branching out within their brand of indietronica.
Woods Perennial
On their twel h record, the folkie- psych rockers out of Brooklyn lean into those parts of
Husbands CUATRO
the equation with equal aplomb. Opening and closing with instrumentals, along with a couple more mixed in, Woods are in no hurry on this mellow a air. As their name may allude, the band's stylings pair perfectly with the autumn air slowly moving in, and this of- fering will only t better as the temperatures continue to drop. Notable: Following 2018's excellent Be the Cowboy , last year's Laurel Hell fell a little at for me. Some 19 months later indie-folk singer-songwriter Mitski is back and e Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We is far more engaging to my ears. Sparse and beauti- ful, it's also deserving of far more than these brief few words.
e third Husbands album featured here, the guys from Oklahoma have now taken a 2-1 lead
over their French counterparts. CUATRO is Danny Davis' rst record under the moniker without co-founder Will Norton, and while it may lack some of the sonic depth and experi- mentation of last year's Full-On Monet , the fourth LP (in case you couldn't decipher the meaning, despite the spelling) retains plenty of catchy, synth-y pop goodness. ink a little less Full-On Monet , a little more full-on Animal Collective.
Made with FlippingBook Learn more on our blog