There have been 13 Guided by Voices albums released since Robert Pollard resurrected the name in 2016, and two of them have been double albums. All of the songs that have tumbled forth would be easy to gloss over if a certain percentage were half-baked throwaways.
Alas, that’s not been the case. Pollard and his long-standing, ever-shifting band may be the living definitions of “indie” and “lo-fi,” but each album has been a sturdy collection of fully-realized songs.
Crystal Nuns Cathedral, arriving just four months after the band’s last LP, is being touted as one that will stand above the pack. “[T]heir 35th and quite possibly…BEST album” the press release so humbly states. It’s not unlike the time Guided by Voices allowed themselves only one album in 2018, the much-acclaimed Space Gun.
Again, the band’s PR team made much of it, insisting that no other record that year would distract listeners from its singular greatness. Judging from the two songs that preceded the album’s release, Crystal Nuns Cathedral has the markings of yet another winner. But what about the rest of it?
When it comes to Guided by Voices, that’s a rather reasonable question. Is Crystal Nuns Cathedral worth the investment of time that a potential fan could also pour into Styles We Paid For or Mirrored Aztec?
For one thing, Crystal Nuns Cathedral follows a pretty no-nonsense format with 12 songs clocking in at just over 38 minutes. Secondly, there are no demo-quality recordings like “Razor Bug” from last year’s It’s Not Them. It Couldn’t Be Them. It Is Them!.
November, as most Novembers, was not as blockbuster for new releases that October and September turned out to be, but there were still plenty of standout songs from largely well-received new albums by a variety of musicians and bands, from bedroom DIY to signed artists. According to IRC listeners, the No. 1 song* of the month was the lead single, and title track, from Dirty Projectors new EP, About To Die.
The No. 2 song of the month was “X-Mas Spirit Catcher,” just one of the tracks we highlighted in our Album of the Week: Silver & Gold by Sufjan Stevens. The five-disc, 58-song box set is the second installment of Stevens’ prolific project of original and cover songs of Christmas and holiday songs. The first box set, Songs For Christmas, was released in 2006 and quickly became a must-have for not only Stevens’ biggest fans, but also for many music lovers who would like a comprehensive, and extensive, collection of indie/alternative Christmas music.
“X-Mas Spirit Catcher” – Sufjan Stevens from Songs for Christmas: Silver & Gold (Vols. 6-10) (MP3 instant download or CD version)
The two box sets – Songs For Christmas (MP3 instant download or CD version) and Silver & Gold (MP3 or CD version) make great Christmas gifts, especially the CD sets because they come with a cool designed box, download codes for the MP3 versions, and all kinds of interesting goodies inside that one would only expect from the playful and creative Stevens, including notes, illustrations, lyric sheets and other odds and ends. The CD box sets also include a MP3 download code. Listen or download four additional choice tracks from Silver & Gold, plus two music videos, and read our extensive review of the Stevens’ Christmas Songs project.
Both box sets are a generous offering for the price, and there are dozens and dozens of traditional Christmas songs performed by Stevens and his ensemble – as well as dozens of original songs from Stevens – that are must-haves for Sufjan fans, and perfect gifts for a friend or family member who likes indie music and Christmas songs. IRC’s popular Indie Christmas Songs playlist series (with over 300 alternative/indie Christmas and holiday songs) contain many tracks from Stevens’ original 2006 box set, Songs for Christmas.
The No. 3 most streamed and downloaded song for November was the lead single, “Affection,” from Crystal Castles‘ latest release, III, (check out all the singles from the Best New Releases for the Week of Nov. 13th). The ascent of Crystal Castles in the past few years has been nothing short of a whirlwind success thanks to the Canadian duo’s amazing songwriting and execution of experimental electro pop. Their third album is one of the best LPs of the year.
“Affection” – Crystal Castles from III on Casablanca Records
Following close behind Crystal Castles to take the No. 4 slot is a new single, “Alligators,” from a DIY Artist of the Week, Chad Murphy, aka, Markarians. IRC’s profile of him as an artist of the week got an enthusiastic response from readers. Click to the full post above to read about Murphy’s interesting DIY sound and excellent talents and listen to three additional tracks from two different releases.
“Alligators” – Markarians from Move, Lord – Sept. 7th
Rounding out the top five songs of the month was the latest single from veteran indie rockers Guided By Voices. The song, “She Lives in an Airport,” coming in as the No. 5 song of the month is the lead single off of the band’s 19th studio album, The Bears for Lunch, released the Week of November 13th. GBV’s 1987 debut album, Devil Between My Toes, celebrated its 25th anniversary this year. GVB most likely would have released more than 19 albums were it not for the eight-year gap between 2004’s Half Smiles of the Decomposed (at the time, Robert Pollard declared it the band’s final album) and this year’s release of the critically acclaimed ‘comeback album,’ Let’s Go Eat the Factory.
In June of 2010, the classic ‘1993-1996’ band lineup, reunited to perform at the 21st anniversary party of Matador Records in Las Vegas. Guided By Voices didn’t just come back – they came back with a roar, selling out shows at iconic venues across the U.S., and around the world, in addition to dropping three albums of new material this year alone. And somehow Pollard also found time to release his latest solo LP, Jack Sells the Cow, this past September.
The single “I Follow You” from buzz band Melody Echo Chamber‘s self-titled, debut LP (featured in the Week of Nov. 6th Best New Releases), chimed in as the No. 6 song of the month. The track is awash in melodies, sweeping instrumentation, and swirling synths. Interestingly, the band’s second single trumped – at least on IRC – their more popular first single, “Endless Shore,” recorded by Tame Impala band member Kevin Parker, but not by much. In fact, the two singles were nearly neck-and-neck in our web stats for the number of times played and downloaded, making “Endless Shore” the No. 7th most popular song for the month of November.
The previously unreleased song, “Pastry Sharp,” from Chicago neo-folk band Califone‘s latest album, Sometimes Good Weather Follows Bad People, a reissued compilation of the Chicago neo-folk band’s first two E.P.’s, was the No. 8 song of the month. The song was part of the Best New Releases for the Week of Nov. 6th.
“Pastry Sharp (previously unreleased)” – Califone from Sometimes Good Weather Follows Bad Peopleon Jealous Butcher Records
The Arizona indie band Gospel Claws newest album yielded the No. 9 track for the month of November, “Pale Horse Dry Cleaning,” that serves as “a toe-tapping vow of epic destruction in the name of love,” as one blogger for Violent Success wrote. To round out the Top 10 for the month of November is the ‘comeback’ lead single, “Been Away Too Long,” (signaling the band’s 2010 comeback 13 years afterhiatus after disbanding in 1997) from a newly reunited Soundgarden, who were among the “grunge pack,” if you will, of the top bands during the 1990’s Seattle grunge explosion that became a major worldwide music phenomenon.
In case you missed any of the weekly Best New Releases playlists (which is one of the most popular ‘indie’ releases series on the web), access them there here.
While we prepare the weekly Top 10 Songs playlists for November, you can listen to, and download, dozens and dozens of the top songs mixes from October and the rest of 2012 – it’s a great MP3 collection of the most fantastic songs of 2012, from both major label ‘indie’ artists and plenty of DIY, under-the-radar bands that we profile all of the time. Enjoy.
Paul Banks single, “The Base,” that was released at the end of October, raged in popularity on IRC well into November, outpacing the No. 1 song for November, “About to Die,” by a 4-to-1 margin, and was also the No. 1 song for the last week of October.
This is the last Best New Releases for the spring of 2012, and if you’ve been following along over the weeks, then you know there have been some spectacular new albums, EPs and singles released so far. Just in case you missed any of them – they’re all in one place, containing hundreds of free and legal MP3s, or you can just stream them for days while you do other things.
Kicking off this week’s Best New Releases is the fresh single from Jaill, “Perfect Ten,” off of the band’s latest album, Traps, which just so happens to be our Album of the Week, even though the album cover doesn’t cut it for us (check it out by clicking on the album link). Sub Pop Records signed the Milwaukee psych pop/garage rock trio in 2006 and we’re sure glad they did.
Sub Pop has an uncanny ability to pick out talented and unique artists and sign them; they’re also known for granting their artists tons of creative freedom, and it reflects in the work their line-up has produced for over two decades now. Too bad the “big” labels don’t do more of that, and lose the formulated crap, which by now almost everyone can identify in the first 20 seconds of a song (ugh).
Jaill was a band to watch for IRC the first time we spun their debut album, That’s How We Burn, upon it’s release in 2009. It was full of surf punk glory, and just one of dozens upon dozens of amazing debuts that year. The band has returned with a new single that signals a new sonic direction for the band. If you want to hear more, check out our Jaill archives, and you can also stream Traps via AOL/Spinner for the next four or five days. Also, look out for Vol. II of this week’s Best New Releases where there will be double shots from bands in this post, including Jaill.
Note: Vol. II of this week’s BNR’s will include another track from Jaill.
The Tallest Man on Earth, the alias of 29-year-old Swedish singer/songwriter Kristian Matsson, quickly made a name for himself within the indie folk music genre in the past five years by way of his profound nasal-prone vocals, which have earned Matsson endless comparisons to the legendary Bob Dylan, while simultaneously maintaining his own unique identity. Too bad though that the album cover, like Jaill’s new record, sucks. Look out for an expose we’re working on about modern album art, and why it matters in the digital age.
Also, check out new singles from These United States, Metric, Jonathan Boulet, Stepdad, Capitol 6, Fallon Crush, Giant Giant Sand, Stepdad and others. There are some sah-wheet singles out this week. Volume Two coming up next.
“1904” – The Tallest Man on Earth from There’s No Leaving Now on Dead Oceans
“Born Young” – These United States from These United States on United Interests
“Youth Without Youth” – Metric from Synthetica on Metric Music International via MusicisArt.ws
“Must Land Running” – Stepdad from Wildlife Pop on Black Bell Records
“You’re An Animal” – Jonathan Boulet from We Keep The Beat, Found The Sound, See The Need, Start The Heart on Modular
“Honey Honey” – Fallon Cush from April (self-released)
“Detained” – Giant Giant Sand from Tucson on Fire Records
“Livin’ Free” – The Young from Dub Egg on Matador
Have any comments or opinions on any of the singles, albums and artists in this post? Go ahead and write something into the Comments box below (no sign-up required; email is kept private) and not only will your comment be potentially seen by tens of thousands of people, we also pick some of our favorite comments to enter into a drawing for free albums and sometimes concert tickets and merchandise.
The reunited line-up of Guided By Voices released their new album on Jan. 17th, and the single, "Doughnut for a Snowman"
Now that we’re coming up on the end of the first month of 2012, the number of new releases from indie and alternative rock artists and bands are starting to stack up. Last week, we featured new releases from a bunch of DIY bands – most of who sent us fresh, legal tracks from just dropped albums, EPs and singles, and were not posted anywhere else online but IRC.
Based on the number of page views, streams and downloads, plus, ‘Likes’ and Tweets for that first Best New Releases post of 2012, it is fair to say that many IRC listeners and new visitors were giving the thumbs up to fresh drops from artists and bands like The Sanctuaries, Paper Lights, Tito Ramsey, Gary Go, The Set, Graham Repulski, Songs for Sleepwalkers, and Mythologies, among others. If you missed that playlist post, we recommend giving it a spin.
Now on to the week of Jan. 17th releases; we’re playing catch up, and we’ve mustard up our resources to do a complete review of the best releases dropped last week. It was definitely a meatier week for new releases; there are a number of drops in particular that caught our attention from the start, including fresh tracks from Paul Brill, Howler, The Breakups, The Duke Spirit, Frankie Rose, and of course, the first album of two planned for 2012 from the reunited and legendary lo-fi trail-blazers, Guided By Voices, dropped last week via their own label, GBV Inc. In addition to the songs themselves, we dig the eccentric naming conventions that Robert Pollard and his GBV band mates employ for the album title – Let’s Go Eat the Factory – and song titles, including tracks like “Doughnuts for a Snowman,” and the lead single below, “The Unsinkable Fats Domino.”
The Unsinkable Fats Domino – Guided By Voices from Let’s Go Eat the Factory
The new track from the Rough Trade Records recording artist, Howler, “Back of Your Neck,” is one of the more memorable tracks out this week. With full force rock guitars blazing and drums and cymbals crashing, intertwined with “oo-oooo-ooo” choruses and the almost punk style lead vocals, Howler is definitely in our scope as an IRC Radar Band of 2012. Looking forward to listening to the full album, America Give Up. Expect to hear more about Howler on IRC in 2012.
Louden Swain is a Los Angeles indie band that we are really digging after hearing the two tracks below that the band sent directly to us to share with IRC listeners. On January 17th, the band released the album, Eskimo, via the indie record label Carwreck Records. Eskimo isn’t what you might think of when you think of ‘indie rock’. The songs are well-crafted with accessible lyrics and melodies, layered with harmonies, and full of sonic clarity thanks to the contributions of renowned mixer Joe McGrath (Ryan Adams, Morrissey) and Grammy-winning master engineer Gavin Lurssen (Eric Clapton, Lenny Kravitz, Ben Harper) after producing the album themselves. With that kind of talent helping them out, it’s nearly impossible not to end up with some great tracks, two of which are featured below.
“Eskimo” – Louden Swain from Eskimo
“Cigarette” – Louden Swain from Eskimo
Swain’s influences include Wilco, Dr. Dog, Tom Petty, Spoon, Kings of Leon, The Beatles, and they have been featured in the Los Angeles Times, CMJ, Music Connection, and Popmatters.
Paul Brill, an indie pop artist who is making waves as of late, delivers the two most upbeat tracks of the week, which are perhaps better suited for a summer time release. But at the same time the two tracks, “Sunny Side” – a melodic, sing-a-long song that is hard to get out of your head, and “The Royal Oui,” the second released single from Breezy, is short and memorable. We hope to hear the entire album sometime soon.
“Sunny Side” – Paul Brill from Breezy
“The Royal Oui” – Paul Brill from Breezy
Stream Breezy via Spinner
The Duke Spirit Release New Album – Bruiser, plus, Frankie Rose, The Breakups and More
Ever since they broke out as an increasingly popular indie band during 2009 and 2010, The Duke Spirit have been increasing their fan following, blogger love and even mainstream press coverage – something that only happens for a relatively small percentage of the thousands of bands trying to get noticed. The Duke Spirit don’t need to get noticed, but just like every band that is popular nowadays, they have to keep working hard to remain relevant because there are new, talented bands breaking out all of the time (we’ll continue doing our part to expose talented, ‘new’ bands throughout 2012).
This week the band officially released the MP3 edition of their new album, Bruiser, and what we’ve heard so far, we are digging it. However, the CD version of the album was released last November; some of you probably have seen an increasing trend in recent years in which bands have multiple release dates for a new album – one date for the CD; another date for the MP3 version, and sometimes, another date for the vinyl edition. This practice is done for a variety of reasons by labels, but it makes it difficult for bloggers and web publishers to decide what qualifies as the actual release date. Bruiser is one of those cases, but since the promotion of the album has more often mentioned Jan 17th, 2012 as the release date, that’s the one we’re going with.
The album, which was mixed by Alan Moulder (U2, My Bloody Valentine, TPOBPAH), and is another solid collection of big riffs, anthemic choruses and the powerhouse vocals of pistol Liela Moss. To hold you over, at the top of this post there’s a live MP3 of new single “Don’t Wait” recorded for Later With Jules Holland. Additionally, The Duke Spirit are also have a track on the soundtrack of the new Dark Night: Arkahm City videogame, which also includes songs by Noel Gallagher, MGMT, Florence and the Machine, and Adele.
“Don’t Wait” (Live) – The Duke Spirit from Bruiser
Worth noting is the fact that a number of the lead singles from new releases dropped last week feature female vocalists. Brooklyn songwriter and vocalist Frankie Rose is definitely one of the best female singers in last week’s new releases, as the short-but-sweet lead single, “Know Me” demonstrates – an airy pop track with the perfect amount of reverb and lo-fi for Rose’s impressive vocals.
Old Monk, Paul Brill, Lunarin, Buried Beds, Ani DeFranco, Cate Le Bon, and More
A few months ago we profiled Brooklyn artist Old Monk and the release of the album, Birds in Belize, released via Eenie Meenie Records. However, last week was the official U.S. release of the MP3 version of the album. This is a new single that we did not have available for the original release of the CD.
“Sacred Birds” – Old Monk from Birds of Belize
It’s not often that we receive submissions of new releases from bands in Singapore, but the DIY alternative rock band Lunarin sent in a couple of tracks from their new album dropped last week, The Midas Sessions. Formed in 2003, Lunarin consists of an unholy trinity of Linda Ong, Ho Kah Wye and Loo Eng Teck. They have been playing together for more than 15 years. Initially inspired by grunge bands such as Alice in Chains and Soundgarden, the band has since expanded their musical horizons to create a soundscape reminiscent of the progressive art-rock/heavy metal stylings of Tool, A Perfect Circle and PJ Harvey.
“Right of Sleep” – Lunarin from The Midas Sessions
“Wednesday” – Lunarin from The Midas Sessions
Other singles from new albums dropped last week include MP3s from Rags & Ribbons, Walter Rose, Ernest Gonzales, Matthew Dear, Ani DiFranco, Cate Le Bon, Herman Dune. But first, we’ll kick off this mini-playlist with a new track from the debut album from Buried Beds, an indie Americana band that is completely new to us, and have quickly become, at the least, an IRC Radar Band of 2012. The EP is also the soundtrack to an indie movie they produced. The lead track, “Ivory Towers” is wonderfully crafted and performed, uplifting at times, full of masterful drumming mixed with a horn section, and impressive vocals and choruses; at other times, the song mellows out considerably, at which time the vocals carry the tune
“Ivory Towers” – Buried Beds from Small Stories EP
“The Glass Masses” – Rags & Ribbons from The Glass Masses (self-released)
“Drive South” – Walter Rose from Cast Your Stone (self-released)
