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MUDHONEY
Vanishing Point

Mudhoney are still very much alive. The notion they’re not (or won’t be soon) is being bandied about by the band’s diehards who think the mere title of their new album, Vanishing Point (Mudhoney‘s 9th album, the first in five years) portends their end: no more grunge carnage and beer-guzzling hijinks? No worries about it: Mark Arm and his long-time friends’ groove-led-Stooges-acid-pop (with added screaming, of course) is still here. And it rocks hard as usual. Vanishing Point is filled once again with dread, psychoanalysis and Nuggets-on-fire riffs: the sort of uninhibited rock music that is harder and harder to locate these days.
Well, Mudhoney makes it easy.

ARTIST: Mudhoney
TITLE: Vanishing Poin
LABEL: Stickman
RELEASE DATE: April 12, 2013
TIME: 34:03 min.
WEB: http://mudhoneyonline.com/
PURCHASE: price – 9.99$

01. Slipping Away [04:45]
02. I Like It Small [03:40]
03. What to Do with the Neutral [03:29]
04. Chardronnay [01:36]
05. The Final Course [04:19]
06. In This Rubber Tomb [03:33]
07. I Don’t Remember You [02:34]
08. The Only Son of the Widow Nain [02:44]
09. Sing This Song of Joy [03:32]
10. Douchebags On Parade [04:19]

PREVIEW: Mudhoney – I Like It Small

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LOW
The Invisible Way

Low will celebrate their 20th anniversary as a band with their new album The Invisible Way. Produced by Jeff Tweedy and recorded in Wilco‘s Chicago studio, The Loft, the album, out via Sub Pop, is one of the best act of the incredible career of Alan Sparhawk‘s band. Low visited Wilco‘s studio while they were in Chicago on tour and decided to record with Tweedy after hearing his work on Mavis Staples‘ album You Are Not Alone. The tracks on The Invisible Way are about intimacy, drug, archaeology and love. As a last note, the fact that, of the album’s 11 tracks, drummer/vocalist Mimi Parker sings lead on five.

ARTIST: Low
TITLE: The Invisible Way
LABEL: Sub Pop
RELEASE DATE: March 19, 2012
TIME: 38:57 min.
WEB: http://chairkickers.com/
PURCHASE: pre-order

01. Plastic Cup [03:02]
02. Amethyst [05:21]
03. So Blue [04:23]
04. Holy Ghost [03:07]
05. Waiting [02:38]
06. Clarence White [03:47]
07. Four Score [02:56]
08. Just Make It Stop [04:09]
09. Mother [02:52]
10. On My Own [05:44]
11. To Our Knees [03:08]

Low – Amethyst

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METZ
Metz

Canada’s METZ are a return to everything that’s good about loud, ecstatic live music: a frantic nod to Nation of Ulysses, Shellac, The Pixies, The Jesus Lizard, and Public Image Ltd. at their most vicious, while carving out some heavy new business. Metz was produced by band and recorded by Graham Walsh (Holy Fuck) and Alexandre Bonenfant. METZ articulate with deafening clarity what we’ve known for some time: the world of good music needs a new power trio, and this is it.

ARTIST: METZ
TITLE: Metz
LABEL: Sub Pop
RELEASE DATE: October 9, 2012
TIME: 29:54 min.
WEB: http://www.metzztem.com/
PURCHASE: http://www.amazon.com/

01. Headache [02:19]
02. Get Off [02:23]
03. Sad Pricks [02:52]
04. Rats [03:05]
05. Knife in the Water [02:13]
06. Nausea [01:06]
07. Wet Blanket [03:54]
08. Wasted [04:08]
09. The Mule [02:25]
10. Negative Space [03:23]
11. –))– [02:06]

METZ – Headache

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BEACH HOUSE
Bloom

Bloom is the fourth full length album by Baltimore-based Beach House. It builds on 2010′s Teen Dream to further develop their distinctive sound yet stands apart as a new piece of work. Bloom is meant to be experienced as a whole album: a singular, unified vision of the world. The many layers of Bloom are uncomplicated and meticulously constructed to ensure there is no waste. Bloom was recorded in 2011 at Sonic Ranch Studios in Tornillo, TX and mixed at Electric Lady in NYC. The band co-produced the record with Chris Coady.

ARTIST: Beach House
TITLE: Bloom
LABEL: Sub Pop
RELEASE DATE: May 15, 2012
TIME: 51:09 min.
WEB: http://www.beachhousebaltimore.com/
PURCHASE: http://www.amazon.com/

01. Myth [04:20]
02. Wild [05:00]
03. Lazuli [05:03]
04. Other People [04:26]
05. The Hours [03:10]
06. Troublemaker [04:57]
07. New Year [05:27]
08. Wishes [04:48]
09. On the Sea [05:34]
10. Irene [08:24]

Beach House – Myth

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SHEARWATER
Animal Joy

Shearwater‘s Animal Joy is the first band’s album for Sub Pop. Led by Jonathan Meiburg, and featuring drummer Thor Harris, and bassist Kimberly Burke, Shearwater ditch the expansive approach of their recent records (particularly the epic trilogy of Palo Santo, Rook and The Golden Archipelago) to create a record that seems shockingly direct, immediate and intensely personal. Meiburg is no stranger to lush, crafted recordings, but this one sounds like no prior Shearwater incarnation.

ARTIST: Shearwater
TITLE: Animal Joy
LABEL: Sub Pop
RELEASE DATE: February 14, 2012
TIME: 43:10 min.
WEB: http://shearwatermusic.com/

01. Animal Life [03:38]
02. Breaking the Yearlings [03:08]
03. Dread Sovereign [03:51]
04. You As You Were [03:43]
05. Insolence [06:25]
06. Immaculate [02:26]
07. Open Your Houses (basilisk) [03:25]
08. Run the Banner Down [02:50]
09. Pushing the River [04:32]
10. Believing Makes It Easy [04:11]
11. Star of the Age [05:01]

Shearwater – Breaking the Yearlings

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HANDSOME FURS
Sound Kapital

Sound Kapital is the third full-length from Handsome Furs, the Canadian two-piece of husband and wife Dan Boeckner and Alexei Perry. It’s also the first Handsome Furs album written exclusively on keyboards. This was a conscious decision: the suggestion that electronic music is cold, alien or unfeeling, somehow detached from the human experience, is as lingering as it is outdated. Handsome Furs don’t just shrug off this myth on Sound Kapital, they reject it with every fiber of their shared being: on this album they use keyboards and drum machines to forge life-affirming anthems taut with muscle and blood. These nine songs of innocence and experience occasionally look ahead to a better world in the not-so-distant future, but Handsome Furs know what time it is: now. They are fully engaged in the moment and their surroundings, wherever that may be. Sound Kapital was recorded quickly, polished and rehearsed in the Furs’ derelict Montreal studio, then preserved for posterity by longtime producers Howard Bilerman and Arlen Thompson at Hotel2Tango, mixed by Finnish dudes Antti Joas and Jonas Verwijnen at Kaiku Studios in Helsinki and Berlin, and mastered by Harris Newman at Grey Market Mastering in Montreal.

ARTIST: Handsome Furs
TITLE: Sound Kapital
LABEL: Sub Pop
RELEASE DATE: June 28, 2011
TIME: 40:13 min.
WEB: http://handsomefurs.com/

01. When I Get Back [04:43]
02. Damage [03:19]
03. Bury Me Standing [04:07]
04. Memories of the Future [03:46]
05. Serve the People [04:07]
06. What About Us [05:18]
07. Repatriated [04:48]
08. Cheap Music [03:05]
09. No Feelings [07:00]

Handsome Furs – Repatriated

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WASHED OUT
Within & Without

Washed Out is the operational alias for Atlanta, GA’s Ernest Greene, and Sub Pop Records presents his first full-length, Within & Without. Greene recorded the album with Ben Allen, who, among a great many other things, co-produced Animal Collective‘s Merriweather Post Pavillion, Gnarls Barkley‘s St. Elsewhere and Deerhunter‘s Halcyon Digest.

ARTIST: Washed Out
TITLE: Within & Without
LABEL: Sub Pop
RELEASE DATE: July 12, 2011
TIME: 40:28 min.
WEB: http://ernestgreene.blogspot.com/

01. Eyes Be Closed [04:48]
02. Echoes [04:07]
03. Amor Fati [04:25]
04. Soft [05:32]
05. Far Away [04:00]
06. Before [04:45]
07. You and I [05:12]
08. Within and Without [03:22]
09. A Dedication [04:17]

Washed Out – Amor Fati

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MOGWAI
Earth Division

Scottish experimental-rock institution Mogwai follow up their Sub Pop debut album Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will with the Earth Division EP. This new beautiful short release highlights a more subdued side of Mogwai, with three quietly plaintive piano-and-string-infused tracks, plus the fuzz-drenched haze of Drunk and Crazy. New Mogwai, the same beauty.

ARTIST: Mogwai
TITLE: Earth Division
LABEL: Sub Pop
RELEASE DATE: September 13, 2011
TIME: 16:34 min.
WEB: http://www.mogwai.co.uk/

01. Get to France [02:26]
02. Hound of Winter [03:54]
03. Drunk and Crazy [05:29]
04. Does This Always Happen? [04:45]

Mogwai – Get to France

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FLEET FOXES
Helplessness Blues

Engineered and mixed by Phil Ek and co-produced by Phil and the band, the new Fleet Foxes record is called Helplessness Blues. Like very nearly every worthwhile thing, making this album was not easy; it was a difficult second album to make. Drawing inspiration from folk/rock from about 1965 to 1973, and Van Morrison‘s Astral Weeks in particular, Helplessness Blues sees Fleet Foxes heighten and extend themselves, adding instrumentation (clarinet, the music box, pedal steel guitar, lap steel guitar, Tibetan singing bowls, vibraphone, etc., along with more traditional band instrumentation), with a focus on clear, direct lyrics, and an emphasis on group vocal harmonies. The album is called Helplessness Blues for at least a couple of reasons: one, it’s kind of a funny title; secondly, one of the prevailing themes of the album is the struggle between who you are and who you want to be or who you want to end up, and how sometimes you are the only thing getting in the way of that.
And that is so blues as much as it’s helpless.

ARTIST: Fleet Foxes
TITLE: Helplessness Blues
LABEL: Sub Pop
RELEASE DATE: May 3, 2011
TIME: 49:57 min.
WEB: http://www.fleetfoxes.com/

01. Montezuma [03:37]
02. Bedouin Dress [04:30]
03. Sim Sala Bim [03:14]
04. Battery Kinzie [02:49]
05. The Plains / Bitter Dancer [05:54]
06. Helplessness Blues [05:03]
07. The Cascades [02:08]
08. Lorelai [04:25]
09. Someone You’d Admire [02:29]
10. The Shrine / An Argument [08:07]
11. Blue Spotted Tail [03:05]
12. Grown Ocean [04:36]

Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues

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LOW
C’mon

While 2007’s Drums and Guns was a statement against the war in Iraq, slowcore icons Low aim for more widespread themes on their ninth full-length album C’mon: a general plea for decency and common sense in a world that they feel is lacking in such things. Recorded at the same Catholic church that 2002’s Trust was laid down in, the album is being released by longtime label home Sub Pop and again it makes you feel like you don’t need happy music, anymore.

ARTIST: Low
TITLE: C’mon
LABEL: Sub Pop
RELEASE DATE: April 11, 2011
TIME: 45:50 min.
WEB: http://chairkickers.com/

01. Try to Sleep [04:20]
02. You See Everything [04:08]
03. Witches [04:03]
04. Done [02:55]
05. Especially Me [05:29]
06. $20 [04:11]
07. Majesty Magic [04:14]
08. Nightingale [04:58]
09. Nothing But Heart [08:12]
10. Something’s Turning Over [03:20]

Low - Try to Sleep

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J MASCIS
Several Shades of Why

Nearly all acoustic Several Shades of Why was created with the help of a few friends. Notable amongst them are Kurt Vile, Sophie Trudeau (A Silver Mount Zion), Kurt Fedora (long-time collusionist), Kevin Drew (Broken Social Scene), Ben Bridwell (Band of Horses), Pall Jenkins (Black Heart Procession), Matt Valentine (The Golden Road), and Suzanne Thorpe (Wounded Knees). Together in small mutable groupings, they conjure up classic sounds ranging from English-tinged folk to drifty, West Coast-style singer/songwriterism. But every track, every note even, bears that distinct J Mascis watermark, both in the shape of the tunes and the glorious rasp of the vocals. Ten brilliant tunes that quietly grow and expand until they fill your brain with the purest pleasure.

ARTIST: J Mascis
TITLE: Several Shades of Why
LABEL: Sub Pop
RELEASE DATE: March 15, 2011
TIME: 41:18 min.
WEB: http://jmascis.com/

01. Listen to Me [03:10]
02. Several Shades of Why [04:55]
03. Not Enough [03:14]
04. Very Nervous and Love [04:34]
05. Is It Done? [04:51]
06. Make It Right [03:47]
07. Where Are You? [03:59]
08. Too Deep [02:31]
09. Can I? [05:25]
10. What Happened [04:38]

J Mascis - Not Enough

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PAPERCUTS
Fading Parade

Papercuts prinicipal Jason Robert Quever‘s beautiful songwriting is thoughtful, evocative, subtle, and simultaneously ambitious. Crafted over the course of several months at The Hangar in Sacramento, with Thom Monahan, and at Quever’s own Pan American Recording studio, Fading Parade is meticulously designed pop music, with a fully developed sense of space and a sturdy wall of sound. Imagine Belle & Sebastian teaming up with Slowdive and recording with Phil Spector back when he was killing it in the studio rather than, well, you know. Fading Parade is Papercuts‘ first album for Sub Pop.

ARTIST: Papercuts
TITLE: Fading Parade
LABEL: Sub Pop
RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2011
TIME: 37:47 min.
WEB: http://www.myspace.com/thepapercuts

01. Do You Really Wanna Know [03:15]
02. Do Waht You Will [03:42]
03. I’ll See You Later I Guess [04:49]
04. Chills [04:20]
05. The Messenger [03:28]
06. White Are the Waves [03:17]
07. Wait Till I’m Dead [04:11]
08. Marie Says You’ve Changed [03:28]
09. Winter Daze [03:19]
10. Charades [03:58]

Papercuts – Do What You Will

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THE TWILIGHT SINGERS
Dynamite Steps

“Whenever you’re here, you’re alive” are the first words sung on Dynamite Steps, the fifth album from Greg Dulli‘s Twilight Singers collective, and the group’s first in five years. Dynamite Steps explores the thin line between life and death, mortality and immortality, resignation and celebration that mythical moment when your life flashes before your eyes, drawn out here over the course of eleven songs.

ARTIST: The Twilight Singers
TITLE: Dynamite Steps
LABEL: Sub Pop
RELEASE DATE: February 15, 2011
TIME: 43:05 min.
WEB: http://www.thetwilightsingers.com/

01. Last Night in Town [04:41]
02. Be Invited [03:14]
03. Waves [04:02]
04. Get Lucky [04:11]
05. On the Corner [04:26]
06. Gunshots [03:37]
07. She Was Stolen [03:11]
08. Blackbird and the Fox [02:48]
09. Never Seen No Devil [03:01]
10. The Beginning of the End [03:10]
11. Dynamite Steps [06:44]

The Twilight Singers - On the Corner

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DNTEL After Parties 1 & 2

DNTEL is the side project of Jimmy Tamborello, a.k.a. one half of The Postal Service (with Ben Gibbard of Death Cab For Cutie being the other half). After Parties is his last release: a two parts EP of wonderful IDM. Listening to both of these EP’s separately is a bit hard as they both complement each other. After Parties 1 has a mellow feel to it, and works great if you’re in the mood to chill out. After Parties 2 is more upbeat and has The Postal Service feel every fan should love.

ARTIST: DNTEL
TITLE: After Parties
LABEL: Sub Pop
RELEASE DATE: December 5, 2010
TIME: 40:15 min.
WEB: http://www.dntelmusic.com/

01. After Parties [07:59]
02. Lindsey [04:48]
03. Soft Alarm [04:13]

04. Flares [04:11]
05. Peepsie [03:20]
06. Hits Line [04:31]
07. Aimless [04:11]
08. Leed [07:02]

DNTEL – Lindsey
DNTEL – Flares

WOLF PARADEExpo 86

Hype certainly didn’t sink Wolf Parade‘s debut, Apologies to Queen Mary, and after 2008′s At Mount Zoomer, as well as countless prominent sideprojects from Wolf Parade members (including the Handsome Furs and Sunset Rubdown), the Montreal band has proven to be more than a simple Isaac Brock find. Expo ’86 is named after the world’s fair in Vancouver and was mostly recorded live in studio at Hotel2Tango, with Howard Bilerman, and while it maintains the band’s self-described “maximalist” sound, has more upbeat songs than Wolf Parade‘s earlier releases.

ARTIST: Wolf Parade
TITLE: Expo ’86
LABEL: Sub Pop
RELEASE DATE: June 29, 2010
TIME: 55:39 min.
WEB: http://www.myspace.com/wolfparade

01. Cloud Shadow On the Mountain [04:22]
02. Palm Road [04:41]
03. What Did My Lover Say? (it always had to go this way) [05:42]
04. Little Golden Age [05:01]
05. In the Direction of the Moon [05:46]
06. Ghost Pressure [05:16]
07. Pobody’s Nerfect [05:50]
08. Two Men in New Tuxedos [03:09]
09. Oh You, Old Thing [05:46]
10. Yulia [03:47]
11. Cave-o-Sapien [06:19]

Wolf Parade – Palm Road

BLITZEN TRAPPERDestroyer of the Void

Over the course of their four full-length albums to date, including their revelatory 2008 Sub Pop release Furr, Portland, OR’s Blitzen Trapper have gained a growing international audience. The band’s continuing exploration of American music has earned them notice ranging from Rolling Stone magazine to late-night network television to Yo Gabba Gabba. Destroyer of the Void takes Blitzen Trapper further than ever before, building on the band’s seamless marriage of the familiar and the fantastic.

ARTIST: Blitzen Trapper
TITLE: Destroyer of the Void
LABEL: Sub Pop
RELEASE DATE: June 08, 2010
TIME: 45:56 min.
WEB: http://www.blitzentrapper.net/

01. Destroyer of the Void [06:17]
02. Laughing Lover [03:10]
03. Below the Hurricane [05:26]
04. The Man Who Would Speak True [03:07]
05. Love and Hate [03:24]
06. Heaven and Earth [03:44]
07. Dragon’s Song [03:02]
08. The Tree (feat. alela diane) [03:35]
09. Evening Star [03:43]
10. Lover Leave Me Drowning [03:27]
11. The Tailor [03:20]
12. Sadie [03:41]

Blitzen Trapper – Heaven and Earth