After a couple weeks of avalanche New Release Fridays, things have calmed down a little, though we could just be in the eye of the storm. I only review four new albums this week, but quality is high: Parisian band La Femme deliver their first album in English (it’s also one of their best); talented sibling duo Field Music test the Limits of Language; enigmatic Swedish psych groovers Goat bring one kind of party; while former New Young Pony Club keyboardist Lou Hayter brings another. I also review the new 7″ from Cincinnati’s The Serfs (they’ve gone Madchester) and look back on The Fall‘s seventh album for this week’s Indie Basement Classic.
Meanwhile, this week’s Notable Releases has reviews of Touché Amoré, Chat Pile, The Linda Lindas, Envy, Oranssi Pazuzu, and more.
In other Indie Basement-related news: Drag City is reissuing all of High Llamas’ ’90s albums (!!!) which is something I genuinely thought I’d never see any label do; and I caught both the Johnny Marr / James and Psychedelic Furs / Jesus and Mary Chain‘s Brooklyn tour stops.
Also: Stereo MC’s announced their first US shows in 24 years; and industrial fans may be excited to learn that Paul Barker is back in Ministry.
Head below for this week’s reviews.
ALBUM OF THE WEEK #1: La Femme – Rock Machine (Disque Pointu)
Parisian band’s first English language album is one of their best but is more “machine” than “rock”
La Femme have been making tres French pop since forming in Paris in 2010, with the title of their 2013 debut album, Psycho Tropical Berlin, nicely summing up their sound. (Surfy, krautrocky, psychedelic.) They’re one of the few Francophone to bands make a dent in the US, and in recent years they’ve reached beyond their country’s borders, making a Spanish language album, and another based on Hawaiian pop. With their sixth album, they’ve finally decided to give English a shot and given it the blunt name Rock Machine with song titles like “My Generation,” “Yeah Baby,” “I’m Gonna Make a Hit” and “I Believe in Rock n’ Roll.” Is this a too-late-to-the-party move in 2024, or is Is this La Femme playing dumb and giving America their Freedom Fries? Neither, mon frere.
Rock Machine has almost no guitar on it, or, as far as I can tell, much of any organic instrumentation. While using rock n’ roll song structures and melodies, this is pure synthpop of the early-’80s variety, full of ticking vintage drum machines, arpeggiated keyboard chords, and bleepy, bloopy, bouncy basslines. And it’s awesome. This is La Femme’s best album — with the biggest hooks and melodies, and delightful arrangements and production — since their debut.
Rock Machine also plays a bit like the 1980 cult classic Silicon Teens album, which offered up nascent synthpop covers of early rock n’ roll songs, but minus its novelty element. You could imagine Buddy Holly singing “Ciao Paris” or “Waiting in the Dark.” Founding members Sacha Got and Marlon Magnée bring in vocal help on a number of songs from a few native English speakers, including singer/songwriter/cellist Stella Le Page, Australian techno artist Sam Quealy (who they’re touring with), British actress/singer Freya Warsi, and former Fat White Family drummer Dan Lyons. Crank up “Sweet Babe” (ft Warsi and Quealy), “Ciao Paris,” the “Venus” (the most classic La Femme song here), or the throbbing, glammy arm-waver “Love is Over,” and I dare you not to dance. Rock Machine may be light on traditional rock, but their machines are firing on all cylinders.
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ALBUM OF THE WEEK #2: Field Music – Limits of Language (Memphis Industries)
Ninth album from brothers Peter & David Brewis is another proggy delight full of big percussion, ’80s textures and their unique harmonies
Brothers and musical polymaths Peter and David Brewis have been making austere, proggy, poppy rock as Field Music for 20 years now, and even when they’re pursuing “solo” projects they’re usually both involved, at least a little bit. They don’t seem to worry about having hits and while they were initially lumped in with the ’00s new new wave scene — like The Futureheads, they’re from Sunderland in the North of England — Peter and David have always gone their own way. Most of their records have some sort of concept behind them, though it’s usually a musical one, not lyrical or thematic.
Limits of Language is the ninth Field Music album, first in nearly four years and comes with both a (loose) lyrical and musical concept: songs about middle age and things breaking down, played with an emphasis on Big ’80s synthesizers and percussion. The latter might be new territory for Field Music proper but it has a lot in common with The Week That Was album, which was a Peter Brewis project about ’80s TV news that was musically inspired by the production of Trevor Horn. (David played on it and it’s one of the brothers’ best.) This isn’t synthpop, but rock music with synthesizers (a theme this week?) and other keyboards at the forefront, plus some fretless bass, crashing drums and just a little funky guitar and sax. It’s not quite the hookfest that was 2021’s Flat White Moon, but “Absolutely Negative,” “The Guardians of Sleep,” and the title track are all knotty earworms, and the rest of it is engaging on a sonic level if nothing else. The percussion is fantastic and inventive, those synths sound huge, and at the center are Peter and David. While they each write and sing lead, it’s their unique harmonies that provide Field Music’s glue. Siblings singing together have a unique unreplicatable sound. Limits of Language argues words sometime fail us, but their voices together do not.
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Goat – Goat (Rocket Recordings)
This masked Swedish band deliver one of their funkiest, wildest parties yet
After the six-year break between 2016’s Requiem and 2022’s Oh Death, enigmatic Swedish psych band Goat have been on a hot streak, dropping a new album every year since. In 2023 we got the flute-and-sitar-powered Medicine and now here we are with their self-titled sixth album that is arguably their most groove-oriented record since their 2012 debut, World Music. This time, their globe-trotting, cinematic influences feel like they’re filtered through ’90s hip hop, and the record becomes funkier and more of a party as it goes. Things really kick in halfway through the bongo-crazed “Goatbrain,” when the blazing horn charts give way to a wild, mind-bending guitar solo. From there things stay a hot, sweaty, phantasmagoric mess: “Zombie” bumps on a filthy, delicious guitar riff and wild, tom-heavy percussion (hat tip, Fela Kuti), and “Frisco Beaver” keeps up the pace. “The All Is One” offers a brief chance to catch your breath before things climax with the genuinely awesome “Ouroboros,” a 10-minute, breakbreat-powered psychedelic banger that’s one of the best songs Goat have ever recorded. We’ll need a year to come down off of that one alone.
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Lou Hayter – Unfamiliar Skin (Greco Roman)
Second album of suave, sophisticated ’80-inspired dancepop from the former New Young Pony Club keyboardist
If you’re looking for a dance party but psychedelic voodoo blood rituals aren’t your thing (see Goat above), the second solo album from onetime New Young Pony Club keyboardist Lou Hayter may be more your cup of tea. Like her 2021 debut, Unfamiliar Skin finds Lou incorporating a variety of sleek ’80s dance pop styles — new wave, R&B, yacht rock, soul and jazz — for her own brand of sophistipop. You can hear everything from Propaganda and Will Powers, to Prince and Paula Abdul in these grooves, and Hayter knows just the right sounds to refashion the era into her own creation.
‘Unfamiliar Skin’ is out November 8 via Joe Goddard’s Greco Roman label
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The Serfs – “Paid In Full” b/w “Regen” (Trouble in Mind)
Cincinnati synth-punks time-warp to Manchester 1990 for their acid house inspired new 7″
Just ahead of a UK tour, Cincinnati’s The Serfs are back with a new 7″ that is a swerve in their sound. Previously known for caustic synth-punk, these two songs find inspiration in the Manchester baggy scene where acid house met psychedelic indie guitar music. As a huge fan of that era, I am here for it. “Paid in Full,” which is not an Eric B & Rakim cover, is more pure dance music, while “Regen” is all shuffle beats, trippy synth arpeggiations a la Spacemen 3’s “Big City,” and housey piano. The vocals on both still lean toward dark postpunk, making for a nice balance. Label PR cites dubby Manchester group New Fast Automatic Daffodils as an influence and I can hear it. (Check them out if you are unfamiliar.) This single is also the first taste of The Serfs’ fourth album which I am now anxiously awaiting.
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INDIE BASEMENT CLASSIC: The Fall – The Wonderful and Frightening World Of… (Beggars Banquet 1984)
The Fall’s Brix era kicked into high gear with their first album for Beggars Banquet…which turns 40 this week
The Fall‘s seventh album, The Wonderful and Frightening World of The Fall, was released this week 40 years ago. It was the band’s first for Beggars Banquet and was the first studio album to feature Brix Smith as a full-time member of the group. (Frontman Mark E Smith met Brix on tour in Chicago the year before in America, invited her to join the band along the way, and they would marry just a few months later.) The Wonderful and Frightening World of the Fall also marked the start of the band’s most accessible era of the group; Brix had a way with pop hooks and co-wrote some of The Fall’s best-known songs during her run in the band (and with MES) during the mid-to-late-’80s. It also paired The Fall with producer John Leckie (XTC, Magazine) who helped bring The Fall’s new melodic side to the fore without sacrificing their signature bite. The album includes classics like “2×4,” “Lay of the Land,” “Slang King,” and the Stooges “homage,” “Elves.” The fantastic non-LP singles released around the same time which were added to the US/CD edition’s rejiggered tracklist — the irresistible “C.R.E.E.P,” “Oh! Brother,” and “No Bulbs” — really make the album an all-timer. While a lot of fans rate the album that would follow, This Nation’s Saving Grace, as their finest hour, to me this is their single-serving pinnacle and a perfect introduction to the wonderful and frightening world of The Fall.
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