Blueberry Boat already reached its 20th anniversary last year, but the Fiery Furnaces have never handled themselves conventionally. The sibling duo has announced a new limited edition vinyl reissue of their towering, tangled prog-twee opus, now that the album has reached drinking age. They don’t really seem like round number people, do they?
Ratboys captivated the indie world with 2023’s The Window, which we named our Album Of The Week. The Chicago band is back today with a predictably great new song called “Light Night Mountains All That,” their first song released on their new label home New West Records.
Elder have been making spaced-out, psychedelic doom metal for nearly 20 years, which means their name is now entirely accurate. The band started in Massachusetts, but they’re based in Berlin these days. Elder took what the band describes as a “sabbatical” when they finished touring behind 2022’s Innate Passage, their most recent album. When they got back together, they attempted to clear out the cobwebs by working on a few fragments of music that they wrote in the time before Innate Passage. Those fragments grew into a new thing, and now Elder are releasing them as an expansive 12″ single.
Back in February, the esteemed record label Run For Cover and the venerable NYC concert promoter the Bowery Presents revived their long-dormant music festival Something In The Way — which had first taken place in 2016 at New York’s Webster Hall — moving it to Boston and situating it at the 3,500-capacity indoor venue Roadrunner. They’re running it back at Roadrunner Boston this coming winter, and the lineup is once again stacked.
“I don’t fit in anywhere!” That’s what Drew Waldon screams on the chorus “New From The Pain,” and it’s pretty much true. Waldon leads Gumm, a Chattanooga band that’s spent the past few years carrying the fire for a sincere, vaguely melodic form of hardcore that I generally associate with late-’80s Washington, DC. In the hardcore world, that style isn’t exactly in vogue these days, but Gumm attack it with vital, visceral energy, sounding more like themselves than anyone else. They’ve got a new album on the way, and that’s great news.
A Country Western are part of Philadelphia’s vital constellation of warped post-Alex G, post-TAGABOW indie bands. They released their surprisingly punchy and uptempo album Life On The Lawn last year, and today they’re back with a pair of short new tracks, packaged as an EP called Four-Team Dream Machine. Each one is essentially a solo track: Garrett Miades handles guitar, bass, drums, and lead vocals on the gauzy, Hovvdy-esque “Clouds,” while Derek Hengemihle did guitar, drums, and vocals, Drums on “GG,” which puts a ragtag Pavement feel on the same subgenre. Hear it all blow past you in about three minutes below.
Chappell Roan has been covering Heart’s 1977 classic “Barracuda” for a while now, and she does a damn good job doing it. She just kicked off her run of fall pop-up shows over the weekend, and last night at New York’s Forest Hills Stadium, she brought out Heart’s own Nancy Wilson to sing and shred on “Barracuda” with her.
JD Twitch, known as one half of the duo Optimo (Espacio), has died. The Scottish DJ and producer born Keith McIvor revealed in July that he was diagnosed with an untreatable brain tumor. He passed away on Friday (Sept. 19) in Glasgow’s Prince and Princess of Wales Hospice. He was 57.
Last year, Swedish rap favorites Bladee and Yung Lean teamed up for the alt-rock collaborative album Psykos. The following month, the Drain Gang CEO unleashed Cold Visions; earlier this year, Lean unveiled Jonatan. Now they’re back with a new collab called “Inferno.”
Every week the Stereogum staff chooses the five best new songs of the week. The eligibility period begins and ends Thursdays right before midnight. You can hear this week’s picks below and on Stereogum’s Favorite New Music Spotify playlist, which is updated weekly. (An expanded playlist of our new music picks is available to members on Spotify and Apple Music, updated throughout the week.)