It’s been a big week for Las Vegas music festivals. Best Friends Forever brought second and fourth wave emo nostalgia to Vegas this past weekend, When We Were Young brings third wave emo nostalgia to Vegas this weekend, and the 2025 Sick New World lineup was just announced a few days ago, including an Acid Bath reunion. In other exciting music news, The Cure’s Robert Smith gave a rare, lengthy interview, in which he confirmed that a second new Cure album is already “virtually finished.” (Their first in 16 years, Songs of a Lost World, comes out November 1.)
As for this week’s new music, I highlight seven new releases below, and Bill tackles another nine in Indie Basement, including Christopher Owens, Kelly Lee Owens, Confidence Man, Porridge Radio, PYPY, Cold Cave, Emma Anderson, Silverbacks, and Nap Eyes.
On top of those, this week’s honorable mentions include MC5, Kylie Minogue, Mat Kerekes (Citizen), Black Pus, Bôa, Tim Heidecker, Machine Girl, Immortal Bird, Pipe-Eye (King Gizzard), Lil Durk, Hemlock Ernst & Icky Reels, Benjamin Tod (The Lost Dog Street Band), Office Culture, Audrey Nuna, Benny the Butcher & 38 Spesh, Wyatt Flores, Common Wounds, Hildegard (Helena Deland & Ouri), Nicolas Michaux, The Dopamines, Leila Moss, Oliver Coates, Jerry Cantrell (Alice In Chains), Jake Shimabukuro & Mick Fleetwood, 03 Greedo & Helluva, Yeat, Tiger Really, Big Boogie, Joy Oladokun, S.H.I.T., The Necks, Jordana, Phantogram, Fantastic Negrito, Shower Curtain, Mother of Graves, Boyscott, Karl Blau, Escuela Grind, Seafoam Walls, W.H. Lung, Implants, Spiral XP, Lisel, Bonzie, Skegss, Nara’s Room, Lechuga Zafiro, LP Giobbi, Slim0, Bear Hands, Bishop Briggs, Samora Pinderhughes, Roy Hargrove’s Crisol, Lin-Manuel Miranda & Eisa Davis, Joe Jonas, Shawn Mendes, , The Armed EP, the Copyrights EP, the Alabaster dePlume EP, the Dead Betties EP, the TisaKorean EP, the NOWHERE2GO (mem Code Orange) EP, the Dreamwell & Death Goals split EP, the American Football LP1 covers album, the Songs: Ohia live album, the Gazelle Twin remix album, Andrew Bird & Madison Cunningham’s full-LP cover of Buckingham Nicks, Sponge’s 1994 alt-rock covers album, Bryce Dessner’s We Live In Time score, the collector’s edition of Daniel Johnston’s Artistic Vice, the Don Heffington tribute LP (ft. Fiona Apple, Jackson Browne & more), Light in the Attic’s Even the Forest Hums: Ukrainian Sonic Archives 1971-1996 comp, Kramer’s album of Edgar Allan Poe poems set to music (ft. Thurston Moore, Lydia Lunch, Britta Phillips, Joan As Police Woman & more), J Spaceman and John Coxon’s score for William Eggleston’s Stranded In Canton, the deluxe edition of Danny Brown’s 2023 album Quaranta, and The dB’s Repercussion reissue.
Read on for my picks. What’s your favorite release of the week?
High Vis – Guided Tour (Dais)
The London quintet’s third album is their best yet, a seamless fusion of hardcore punk and Brit-rock that puts the band’s unique identity in the forefront
When High Vis formed out of the ashes of Dirty Money, Tremors, and other UK hardcore bands, they sounded intent on exploring music from outside of the hardcore scene, but it didn’t seem like they had their heart set on any one thing in particular. Their 2019 debut LP No Sense No Feeling explored classic post-punk, while their 2022 breakthrough LP Blending explored Britpop and baggy/Madchester, and all the while, they continued to play shows in the hardcore scene, where they put on performances and elicited crowd responses like that of a hardcore band. As good as they were, they always seemed like they were searching for something. And on their third album, Guided Tour, High Vis sound like they’ve finally found themselves. They turn up the punk elements that have long been present in their live show, and they also branch further out from punk than ever, like when they incorporate elements of house music on the remarkably unique “Mind’s A Lie.” It’s a far more musically-diverse album than either of its predecessors, and throughout it all, High Vis sound more natural than ever. They take cues from all throughout British alternative rock and its many offshoots, and they end up with a musical melting pot that manifests itself in so many different ways. The album-opening title track suggests what it might’ve sounded like if U2 had more than a passing interest in punk, and “Drop Me Out” sounds like Ride jamming with Agent Orange. They pull off the dreamy ballad “Deserve It” as expertly as they pull off the post-hardcore anthem “Mob DLA.” And you can probably spend all day picking apart the various punk, post-punk, hardcore, alt-rock, new wave, dream pop, and Britpop bands they’re probably influenced by, but by the time you reach the end of this Guided Tour, it all just sounds like High Vis.
Japandroids – Fate & Alcohol (ANTI-)
You can still smell last night’s sweat and beer on Japandroids, but the adrenaline nightshift is over and they’re saying goodbye for good this time
Japandroids just woke up on your floor, they’re hungover, and they’re going home. 12 years ago, they released one of the best beer-soaked rock albums of the 21st century and toured their asses off for about 18 straight months after that, but nobody can party that hard forever. They disappeared from the public eye for three years before returning with 2017’s more mild-mannered Near to the Wild Heart of Life, and then disappeared again for another six years after touring behind that one. Now they’ve made it to one last party just to say goodbye for good. They’ve made one last album, Fate & Alcohol, and they’re not touring behind it. It’s a parting gift that captures not just the nights you were already in bed, said “fuck it” and got up to drink with me instead, but also the next morning. Japandroids aren’t going out with a bang, they’re going out with an “I’m too old for this shit.”
After trying out some newer, fancier ideas on Near to the Wild Heart of Life, Brian King and David Prowse returned to their usual raw, no-frills, two-piece setup for Fate & Alcohol, and they recapture some of those blood-pumping, explosive moments that made songs like “Fire’s Highway” and “Young Hearts Spark Fire” such life-affirming forces. At the same time, they’ve also got a song called “Upon Sober Reflection” and moments where they sound weary and tired. One of the album’s best songs falls somewhere in the middle, “All Bets Are Off,” the soaring mid-tempo closing track that sounds more like Clarity-era Jimmy Eat World than Japandroids ever have in the past. It’s worth noting that Japandroids wrote their first album with the intention that it would be their last after struggling to get anywhere throughout their first few years as a band, but that album had the live-fast-die-young energy of a band going as hard as possible before reaching an imminent, self-imposed end. What really happened is the album got a surprise co-sign from Pitchfork which gave Japandroids a career, and now here they are 15 years later with an album that embodies feeling proud of everything you’ve built and peacefully walking away from it.
Pinhead Gunpowder – Unt (1-2-3-4 Go Records)
The Billie Joe Armstrong-fronted band’s long-awaited comeback album makes it sound like the ’90s pop punk era never ended
Earlier this year I had the pleasure of seeing Green Day play Dookie in full for its 30th anniversary, and it was everything you’d hope it would be. Those songs are older than a lot of the people in attendance that night, and Green Day still busted them out with the same youthful vigor they had at Woodstock ’94. When they play those songs in 2024, they still seem like one of the best current bands in the world, and even though I’ve praised this year’s Saviors for feeling like a pretty substantial comeback, a part of me left that show wishing we could get more of those ageless Dookie vibes in the music they’re writing today.
Well, as it turns out, we kind of can. Pinhead Gunpowder, which Billie Joe Armstrong has co-fronted for almost as long as he’s been in Green Day, are back with their first new music in 16 years and first full-length album since their 1997 debut LP Goodbye Ellston Avenue, and they make it sound like the ’90s never ended. Along with bandmates Aaron Cometbus, Bill Schneider, and Jason White (who’s also Green Day’s longtime touring guitarist), Billie Joe recaptures his ’90s pop punk sugar high on these songs as earnestly as he did playing Dookie all summer. He sings lead on most of the songs, and even the songs when other members sing capture that same magic. It sounds less like a return to form and more like a lost gem that was actually recorded in the ’90s, less “old punks reliving their glory days” and more just great songwriters having fun and playing a type of music they love. Given the amount of side projects that Billie Joe has been involved with over the years, I imagine it must feel nice to write songs without the pressure that comes with a new Green Day album, and sometimes the inspiration really hits when all the pressure is lifted. That seems very true of Unt; of the two genuinely good albums that Billie Joe released this year, the one with less name recognition also turned out to be the best.
Karate – Make It Fit (Numero Group)
The ever-shapeshifting Karate make a turn towards classic rock on their first album in 20 years
Jazzy post-hardcore/post-rock/emo/indie/slowcore vets Karate reunited for their first shows in 17 years in 2022, and the reunion quickly turned out to be about more than nostalgia. Geoff Farina, Gavin McCarthy, and Jeff Goddard–who currently live in Chicago, Boston, and Belgium, respectively–started trading some new ideas with each other both remotely and whenever they were able to get together in person, and it resulted in the first Karate album in 20 years, Make It Fit. Karate have said that this album is meant to reflect who they are today, and it definitely doesn’t just sound like they tried to recreate Karate’s beloved ’90s era. Instead, it finds them putting their spin on clean, guitar-forward, Dire Straits-y classic rock, something that Karate started to hint at towards the end of their initial run and that Geoff Farina really explored in his 2010s band Exit Verse. His unique voice and nifty fretwork are as remarkable as ever, he’s just applying them in a different way than he was 20-30 years ago. Those expecting another Unsolved might be disappointed, but taken for what it is, Make It Fit is a strong, often-stunning return from one of underground rock’s most unique bands.
Bon Iver – SABLE, EP (Jagjaguwar)
Justin Vernon returns to the acoustic guitar for his most bare-bones release in 15 years
One week after appearing on Charli XCX’s Brat reworks album, Justin Vernon is bringing us back to the way it all started: with him and his acoustic guitar. In the years since his surprise breakthrough album For Emma, Forever Ago, he’s toyed with everything from orchestral arrangements to experimental electronics to gospel choirs, and he managed to pull all of it off without losing the charm that made For Emma so beloved and unique. But there’s still something so magical about hearing him in intimate, acoustic form, and it’s a real treat to get a new taste of that with new perspective all these years later. The three songs on SABLE, are some of the most personal songs he’s written in a while, and it made sense to present them in this stripped-back way, with Justin’s voice and words clearly in the forefront, sounding as otherworldly as ever. They’re fleshed out only by minor embellishments like horns, pedal steel, and keyboards that add to the delicate atmosphere without taking away from any of the intimacy. The production’s cleaner than the cabin-born For Emma, and there’s a reflective wisdom to Justin’s lyrics that suggest a new chapter rather than a return to form. It invokes the kind of feeling you get when you reconnect with an old friend; they look a little different now, they sound a little different, and you’ve both lived divergent lives, but somehow you pick up like no time has passed at all.
Greg Mendez – First Time / Alone EP (Dead Oceans)
The Philly singer/songwriter’s Dead Oceans debut is also his barest, most lo-fi release in years
After a decade of making music, Greg Mendez had a surprise breakthrough with his 2023 self-titled album, which led to him signing to Dead Oceans (home of Phoebe Bridgers, Mitski, Japanese Breakfast, etc) earlier this year. An artist’s first release for a big label like Dead Oceans often finds them swinging for the fences a little more than they had in the past, but Greg is doing the opposite. After making one of his most fleshed-out, multi-layered records to date with the self-titled, this EP is his barest release in a while. It was recorded to a four-track in his apartment, and it features him singing over either a woozy, slightly-distorted keyboard (“Mountain Dew Hell,” “First Time”) or a rustic acoustic guitar (“Alone,” “Pain Meds”) with little else going on. (And in case you were wondering, the higher-voiced singer on “Pain Meds” is still Greg using a pitch-shifter.) It’s cut from a similar quirky bedroom folk/pop cloth as peers like Alex G and This Is Lorelei, and like both of those artists, Greg sees the power in beauty as much as he sees the power in getting weird with it. Maybe his first full-length for Dead Oceans will in fact be a big swing, but who knows? Greg Mendez is unpredictable, and we’re better off for it.
Candy – Flipping EP (Triple B Records)
Having already released one of this year’s most adventurous hardcore albums, Candy add more fuel to their fire with this EP
Richmond hardcore band Candy returned this year with the genre-busting new album It’s Inside You, and now they’re keeping the momentum going on this new EP. After putting out two albums for Relapse, Flipping finds Candy returning to Triple B, the hardcore label that released their 2018 debut LP Good To Feel, but rejoining a hardcore label did not mean holding back on any of their experimentation. Flipping has everything from D-beating mosh fuel to the electronic “hypercore” vibes heavily explored on It’s Inside You to brutal metal. Vocalist Zak Quiram’s words are often abstract and indiscernible, but between the EP artwork and the general mood of the lyricism, you get the sense that this is a real “watching the world burn” record, and its messages hit pretty hard right now. It’s a ruthless, relentless six-song offering and it makes for a great companion to one of this year’s best albums.
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Read Indie Basement for more new album reviews, including Christopher Owens, Kelly Lee Owens, Confidence Man, Porridge Radio, PYPY, Cold Cave, Emma Anderson, Silverbacks, and Nap Eyes.
Looking for more recent releases? Browse the Notable Releases archive.
Looking for a podcast to listen to? Check out our new episode with Cursive’s Tim Kasher.
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