American singer-songwriter Neko Case has a cool cover out for Record Store Day (April 18) on a light blue 7": her take of the Flat Out Jets song Cool Boys. The B-side is Winchester Mansion of Sound, a track from her latest album Neon Grey Midnight Green. 2500 copies worldwide.
With the release of Diary of a Teenage Prophet LA based director and composer Alex Wroten has finished his trilogy about America, performed by his loose collective named The Gatekeepers. It is a sci-fi satire about religion featuring a cast of over 50 collaborators telling the tale of an "eco-rebel" named Bonnie Brown, who is brought back to life. Her writings in a journal become gospel for a zealous lot, who love to bicker to about the exact meaning of her words. And as per usual, a prophet will be loved and hated.
It is a modern day rock opera of sorts - imagine Igor Strawinsky, Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht teaming up with the Mothers of Invention and Peter Gabriel-era Genesis. Wooten needs a lot of words to tell the story, so consulting the lyrics booklet every now and then will help to make hay of all the shenanigans. The music is served up in four acts and it is wise to pause after each one to let its contents sink in, before going in at the deep end and listen to the whole thing in one sitting. There are a lot of characters involved and it is best to familiarise yourself with them, before looking at the whole picture.
Norwegian stoner metal trio Draken are wielding their instruments as a couple of seriously pissed off inhabitants of Asgard on their new album Here Be Draken, hitting listeners over the heard with towering riffs and pummeling drums. It is not fast per se, well, most of it isn't, but there are plenty of build-ups to go full speed, going for tension without release.
Violence is never far away - It Serves You Right and Saturday Night Head Removal Extravaganza will surely lead to strongly worded letters to programmers, but they love to party as well. Jólablót is a celebration of mid-winter day, a tradition that centuries of Christianity has failed to kill.
Welsh synth duo Martyrs are in a melancholy mood on their Church Street EP, reminiscing in the title track about a long gone record store, a pub that served piss-poor pints but was welcoming and cosy. Twist The Cap, which is offered in two different versions - one uncannily happy and one quite sad, is a love letter of sorts to the valleys for which Wales is rightly known. More personal turmoil is tackled in You've Been Here Before and Having The Window Open Helps. The outlier is He Breaks Horses, a danceable history lesson about the Merthyr Rising of 1831, when the working class first raised a red flag a symbol of rebellion.
It may seem that Michael Hall and Jon Howells are making it up as they go along - synth driven 80s inspired dance is not associated with meaningful lyrics, so superimposing their easy-on-the-ears music with challenging words feels a bit awkward at first. Having the best of both worlds is no mean feat, and it made the completion of this collection of songs a cumbersome process. Thankfully they persisted - or gave up in some cases and went for a sort of finished track that worked it very well, despite all their misgivings and doubts. Sometimes further tinkering is not have helpful at all, something they will to keep in the back of their minds for their next release.
Leeds based pop noir quartet English Teacher made a splash with their first full-length This Could Be Texas in 2024 - the cognoscenti had already embraced their debut EP Polyawkward in 2022. Safe for the Live From BBC Maida Vale Studios EP and a superfluous remix version This Could Be Texas it has been quiet, so their record company has decided to put them back on the map with the release of Nearly Daffodils as a sky blue 7" for Record Store Day (April 18). 1000 copies worldwide with the rather unremarkable Matt Maltese's remix on the B-side.
