Snce the release of their debut studio album Do Hollywood (on 4AD) in 2016, The Lemon Twigs—the New York City rock band fronted by brothers Brian (27) and Michael D’Addario (25)—have waved the same revivalist torch as Alex Chilton and his Big Star crew, working to prove that archaic music from the ‘60s and ‘70s can still be relevant in digital world. Alongside peers like Foxygen and Drugdealer, The Lemon Twigs have explicitly documented a synchronistic blend of contemporary narrative motifs, old-school recording techniques, and flawless, consistent attitudes collaged from various crucial stages of rock ’n’ roll. After a whirlwind 2023, the D’Addarios are continuing the momentum of their own evolving vision and voice, distilling a history lesson of baroque and power pop into A Dream Is All We Know out on Captured Tracks.

Making a bold return, genre-defying, North Carolina-bred quartet and live sensationsRainbow Kitten Surprisewill unveil their first full-length album in six years,LOVE HATE MUSIC BOX, on May 10, 2024 viaElektra Entertainment. After years of struggling with her own mental health that resulted in writer’s block, on-stage episodes, and tour cancellations,RKS singer/songwriter/frontperson Ela Melowas properly diagnosed and treated in 2023, vastly improving her quality of life. As if suddenly struck by creative intervention, songs once again poured out of her, writing at least one a day for an entire year and forming the backbone of their 22-track opusLOVE HATE MUSIC BOX.

Following the postponement of his 2023 tour for health-related reasons and his departure from Columbia Records, Orville Peck attempts something of a reset with Stampede: Vol. 1. A seemingly straightforward project consisting of seven duets, the album reflects both the gay South African country singer’s dedication to the genre and his desire not to be confined by it. And as a symbol of this newfound sense of agency, Peck altered his trademark leather mask to reveal much more of his face (though still covering his eyes) in his live performances and videos.

Keane’s 2004 debut Hopes and Fears will be reissued for its 20th anniversary in May.

GRAMMY award-winning, multi-platinum rock band Kings of Leon are coming back big with their 9th full-length studio album, Can We Please Have Fun. As the title suggests, it’s a document of one of this era’s great rock & roll bands cutting loose, trying new things, and, yes, having some fun. Recorded at Dark Horse studio and produced with new collaborator Kid Harpoon (Harry Styles, Florence + the Machine) the album sees a new side of Kings of Leon. On the new album, the band harkens back to their gritty origins while simultaneously finding new gears. It’s the sound of a band unified in vision and purpose, freed from any expectations, and the album the band says they’ve always wanted to make.

With Death Jokes, for the first time since the project's incarnation in 2006, the spiritual reflections and meditations of Amen Dunes are turned away from himself, and out sharply towards the world. The album is also a drastic turn musically and thematically, rooted in the electronic music of raves and of rap music he grew up with but never imagined himself able to make, playing like a scathing electronic essay on America's culture of violence, dominance, and destructive individualism. The work on Death Jokes began just weeks before the first word of the pandemic came in the winter of 2019; it was completed three years later as we began to emerge from the worst. The album's meaning morphed as the pandemic went on, first a reflection on our attachment to form, and to ourselves, and then shifting into a solemn indictment of our culture's blind spots as we misjudge and attack, veiled self-centeredness and self-importance masquerading as morality. Packaging: Gatefold altpack with custom dust sleeve.

Love is music's neverending muse. To quote Dehd from their fourth album Poetry's opener "Dog Days," it's a "Headache, dog days, stolen glances sideway/ Heartache, mistakes, giving yourself completely." Produced by Ziyad Asrar of the band Whitney, and recorded in New Mexico, Chicago, and the Pacific Northwest, the Chicago trio build their minimalist, vocal-forward pop around the pendulum of that most powerful of emotional states. The understated voices of bassist Emily Kempf and guitarist Jason Balla take turns leading "Hard to Love" alongside minimalist backing from drummer Eric McGrady. Kempf has described the song as her "sonnet of always choosing drunk men, men that are hard to love, a little bit dangerous, always inappropriate, and traumatized in various ways." In the very next track, "Mood Ring," she swings back from deep tragedies to joyous fevers singing about her "tough and rumble man" who is "everything I need, my sexy little angel." Kempf and Balla's voices intertwine on "Alien," resulting in a delicate dance that could be a garbled mess but isn't.

ietNam is the full-length debut of VietNam, released in January 2007. Mickey Madden and Jesse Carmichael of Maroon 5 helped record this album, with Madden serving as one of the executive producers. Jenny Lewis from Rilo Kiley also makes an appearance on the album.

New compilation of the Pooh Sticks hits and misses. Straight Up: Noise Pollution C88-90 is a selection of some of the most loved / despised / ignored tracks released by The Pooh Sticks on however many records it was before it all went wilfully ‘American’ sometime around dotted-line’ing for BMG mega-corp in 1991.

Elvis Costello embarked on a small, intimate tour with his longtime pianist Steve Nieve in the spring of 1996 to promote All This Useless Beauty. All of the shows from the five-date tour were recorded, and highlights from each show were issued on a series of promotional EPs that were later released commercially as the box set Costello & Nieve. Stripped down to their basics, the songs from All This Useless Beauty sit elegantly next to Costello classics, as well as several lesser-known gems from his rich back catalog. The performances are all understatedly passionate, and rank among the best that Costello has given, making Costello & Nieve five discs that any hardcore fan will treasure.

Spoonfed Hybrid, the duo of Ian Masters (Pale Saints) and Chris Trout (A.C. Temple), released their one and only album on 4AD imprint, Guernica, in November 1993. Self-titled, this now-cult release has fans constantly asking for it to be reissued. For its 30th anniversary, 4AD are giving it the expanded treatment, re-releasing the album with a bonus disc of singles, demos and rarities. Beautifully designed, the original artwork has been expanded to now include comprehensive song notes.

Hovvdy's forthcoming self-titled double album, co-produced with Andrew Sarlo (Big Thief, Bon Iver) and longtime collaborator Ben Littlejohn, is their most cohesive and ambitious record to date: The definitive Hovvdy album. Across the 19 track sequence ranging from expansive celebratory anthems to quiet acoustic meditations, Hovvdy displays deft and catchy pop songcraft with touches of indie folk and southern Americana.

The most amazing thing about Stereolab's Margerine Eclipse is how much of a surprise it is. It's not just that it's a fantastic record–Stereolab have made plenty of those. But since 1996's classic Emperor Tomato Ketchup, they've been deconstructing and breaking down their mix of exotic lounge pop and progressive Krautrock, throwing up cyclones of electronic mist. It's yielded some beautiful, but cold and distancing work. Eclipse shocks you with the contrast. Filled with the warmest possible intentions, it invites you to fall in love with its kind thumps and aural flotsam. Anchored by a test pattern baseline and a sly beat machine, the title track wanders around the edges, breaking into the main groove only to smoothly dissolve in a bittersweet end. Sounds like any other Stereolab song, right? But here–stripped down, dynamic, and alive–it's simply charming.

Expanded 30th Anniversary Edition of Kristin Hersh’s Stunning Debut Album. The album plus b-sides and string versions. Also includes lyrics and sleeve notes by Kristin. In 1994, the arrival of a solo album by Kristin Hersh seemed somewhat redundant. After all, Throwing Muses—the band she co-founded with stepsister Tanya Donnelly—had come to be defined by Hersh's singular vocals and songwriting style, both of which moved in unpredictable directions that were wholly unique and intensely evocative. It was Hersh's artistic dominance in the Muses that led to Donnelly leaving the band in 1991 to join the Breeders, then, later, form Belly to play her own, more traditionally hook-oriented take on indie rock. The first Donnelly-less Muses album, Red Heaven, found the band working as a trio, with Hersh's presence even more dominant. The follow-up—University—was recorded soon after, but was temporarily shelved for Hersh to record and release Hips and Makers. Initially viewed as a "get it out of my system" album, Hersh recorded it in fits and spurts over the summer of 1993, tapping Lenny Kaye to produce. Although she very much takes an unaccompanied guitar-and-voice approach to this material, the cavernous recording style combined with Hersh's individualistic approach to composition and tempo make this anything but typical coffee shop material. Vivid lyrics ("Don't kill the God of Sadness/ Just don't let her get you down" on "The Letter," for instance, or "press your palm to your snow-coated thought cage" on "Beestung") are both sharply focused and deeply impressionistic, and none of the songs here appear to have anything resembling a traditional chorus.

As the Elephant 6 catalog continues to expand, it becomes increasingly obvious that many of the label's bands are concerned not merely with creating fresh and exciting music but rather entire mythologies, crafting obscure concept records exploring the intricacies of strange pocket universes. Existing in the musical gray area between Olivia Tremor Control and Neutral Milk Hotel – both of whose members make cameos here – Elf Power's superb When the Red King Comes is a heady journey to a psychedelic utopia, a travelogue with such destinations as "The Secret Ocean," "The Separating Fault," and "The Silver Lake." As imagined primarily by singer/songwriter Andrew Rieger, the album is a odyssey "Into the Everlasting Time," and true to its word, it seems to exist outside of any obvious era – the fuzzy, lo-fi production is an Elephant 6 hallmark, but the unique instrumentation (electric horns, pump organs, even Nepalese percussion) and cryptic, stream-of-consciousness wordplay suggest something altogether different; perhaps most telling is When the Red King Comes' cover, a crazed map suggesting something out of a J.R.R. Tolkien fever dream.