An interesting week of New Music Mondays this week, with nothing MASSIVE being released but a lot of truly solid bands putting out new albums still. Six bands and six albums in total, ranging from rock to death metal. Without further ado, let’s get on with it!
IDLES: CRAWLER
Indie/alt rock band IDLES return with their fourth studio album this week, CRAWLER. Considering the last one peaked at #1 in the UK, safe to say the expectations were pretty high for their follow-up. I can’t say I’d listened to them at all really up until now, but I definitely enjoyed a fair amount of what I heard. Tracks like ‘The Wheel’ and ‘Stockholm Syndrome’ reminded me of old-school, Ramones era punk stuff, while lead single ‘The Beachland Ballroom’ and ‘Progress’ shows off their more pop side. It definitely got a little boring for me by the end due to their limited range and sound, but it was okay to stick on in the background and tune into when something good happened! 7/10
L.A. Guns: Checkered Past
Former G’n’R founder Tracii Guns returns with his glam metal band, L.A. Guns, and their third new album in three years, Checkered Past (yes, it’s actually spelt that way, I hate it too). The singles have a surprising amount of country twang to them but they definitely let things get a little heavier with their album tracks. It’s a fun album overall, just not necessarily the sort of style I was expecting from the band. Highlights include ‘Get Along’, ‘Bad Luck Charm’ and ‘That Ain’t Why’. 7.5/10
Emigrate: THH PERSISTENCE OF MEMORY
Rammstein axe-man Richard Kruspe brought his industrial side project back for a fourth album this last week. It’s weird, but of course it was going to be. I mean heck, the second track is a metal cover of Willie Nelson’s ‘Always on my Mind’ with his Rammstein friend Till Lindemann, so that alone should give you a scale of the weirdness. In all though, it’s a damn enjoyable album. ‘FREEZE MY MIND’ is another great track on the album, as is ‘HYOTHETICAL’. 7/10
They Might Be Giants: BOOK
There are a lot of capitalised album titles this week… just saying. Now, onto the least rock band we have covered so far… I loved this album. ‘Rock’ duo TMBG released their 22nd album last week and is a 40+ minutes of bouncy, feel good music, even if the lyrics usually aren’t. ‘I Broke my Own Rule’, ‘I Can’t Remember the Dream’ and ‘Super Cool’ are all great tracks if you are into this sort of music. If not, stay tuned for the heavier stuff next, but if you are, you’ll be glad to know I’m giving it a solid 7.5/10
Unleashed: No Sign of Life
Picking up the pace immediately are Swedish death metal titans Unleashed. Now 14 albums deep into their career the band have long since perfected their sound so this was more of the same. If you like this band or death/thrash metal at all, you’ll love this. Highlights include opening track, lead single ‘Where Can You Flee?’ and the track below. 7.5/10
Silent Planet: Iridescent
Last but not least this week we get American metalcore band Silent Planet and their fourth studio album, Iridescent. Coming into this completely blind my first impression was that it’s a lot heavier than most metalcore bands I am familiar with these days. It struck me as more of a hardcore album outside of the clean vocals. It was okay, I guess. I wouldn’t say it was anything special either, though. All the tracks were just kind of there, and very little (if anything) stood out to me. ‘Panopticon’ was maybe the best among them and showcases what this album is about the best, so check it out if you’re interested and see if you enjoy it more than me. If not…. 4.5/10
And there we have it. As I said before, it’s not been the biggest week ever in music and we have a couple of bigger weeks coming up before the end of the year, but it was pretty solid with most albums being at least enjoyable. Good but not ground-breaking, but that’s all one can really ask for!
Did you enjoy our article? Keep up to date with all of our stuff from our Facebook page here.