New Releases: April 2018

Round-up of April's most interesting new releases featuring the debut full-lengths by London indie-rockers Goat Girl and MIEN, a psych-rock "supergroup" featuring Black Angel's Alex Maas and The Horrors' Tom Furse, plus new singles by Courtney Barnett, Parquet Courts, Thurston Moore and LUMP,  a collaborative project between Laura Marling and Mike Lindsay:

Albums

GOAT GIRL - Goat Girl
SPEEDY ORTIZ - Twerp Verse
MIEN - Mien
A PLACE TO BURY STRANGERS - Pinned
WYE OAK - The Louder I Call, The Faster It Runs
LAURA VEIRS - The Lookout
JOSH T PEARSON - The Straight Hits!
DRINKS - Hippo Lite
HOP ALONG - Bark Your Head Off, Dog
UNKNOWN MORTAL ORCHESTRA - Sex and Food
OKKERVIL RIVER - In The Rainbow Rain
FORTH WANDERERS - Forth Wanderers
HINDS - I Don't Run
BLOSSOMS - Cool Like You
EELS - The Deconstruction
THE DAMNED - Evil Spirits
MELVINS - Pinkus Abortion Technician
KING TUFF - The Other
ALEXIS TAYLOR - Beautiful Thing
DANIEL AVERY - Song For Alpha
DR OCTAGON - Moosebumps: An Exploration Into Modern Day Horripilation
MOUSE ON MARS - Dimensional People
GROUPER - Grid Of Points
GRIS-DE-LIN - Sprung
JOSH ROUSE - Love in the Modern Age
JEFFREY LEWIS - Works by Tuli Kupferberg (1923 - 2010)
JAMIE STEWART - An Aggressive, Chain Smoking Alcoholic
MANIC STREET PREACHERS - Resistance Is Futile
SLOAN - 12
DR DOG - Critical Equation
A HAWK AND A HACKSAW - Forest Bathing
NANAKI - Decline & Dislocation

Singles & EPs

COURTNEY BARNETT - City Looks Pretty / Sunday Roast
PARQUET COURTS - Mardi Gras Beads
THURSTON MOORE - MX Liberty / Panik
SNAPPED ANKLES - Violations EP
JANE WEAVER - The Lightning Back
LUMP - Curse of the Contemporary
BELLY - Feel EP
BUFFALO TOM - Only Living Boy In New York / The Seeker
LAURA VEIRS - Fading of Stars
KEVIN MORBY AND WAXAHATCHEE - Farewell Transmission / The Dark Don't Hide It
SUPERCHUNK - What a Time to Be Alive (Acoustic) / Erasure (Acoustic)
BUSH TETRAS - Take the Fall EP
THE VOIDZ - Qyurryus / Cool As
ALBERT HAMMOND JR. - Etchings From Francis Trouble
DJANGO DJANGO - In Your Beat
PUBLIC SERVICE BROADCASTING - People Will Always Need Coal
DEATH IN VEGAS - You Disco | Freak Remixes
BLANCK MASS - Odd Scene / Shit Luck
GLASSER - Sextape EP
GIRL RAY - The Way We Came Back
WOLF ALICE - Don't Delete The Kisses (Remix EP)
FLORENCE AND THE MACHINE - Sky Full of Song
FLEET FOXES - Crack-Up / In The Morning
XYLOURIS WHITE / RATTLE - Livas / All Over the Place
THE LIMINANAS - Dimanche / Two Sisters
BAXTER DURY - Miami (Parrot And Cocker Too Mix)
SUFJAN STEVENS - Mystery Of Love EP
LOS LOBOS VS THE SHINS - The Fear
MAC DEMARCO AND SHAMIR - Cover Beat Happening
ULRIKA SPACEK - Suggestive Listening EP

Courtney Barnett - City Looks Pretty

Parquet Courts - Mardi Gras Beads

LUMP - Curse of the Contemporary

Live: Protomartyr, INVSN @ Strom (Munich, April 21st, 2018)

Last week we spent a few unseasonably hot days in Munich, where among visits to castles, museums, beer gardens and other tourist attractions, we also had the opportunity to check out live for the first time Protomartyr, one of our current favorite bands.

The band is scheduled to make its live debut in Athens in one of this summer’s festivals, but there is no doubt that the natural habitat of this Detroit quartet with the idiosyncratic, intense post-punk sound is a dark, intimate club like Strom in Munich, so it would be foolish to miss this opportunity to see them in action while we were there.

According to band leader Joe Casey, the first time Protomartyr was supposed to play in Munich a few years back, the show got cancelled due to lack of interest. Thankfully the band didn’t lose heart and although their music remains a cult concern in the capital of Bavaria, here they were once again playing a storming set at Strom club.

About half of the material of their 70-minute performance was taken from their excellent latest album "Relatives in Descent", with "My Children" kicking off the set and gradually building the tension with its accelerating beat. A tension that rarely let off throughout the set, with the menacing drum beat leading the assault while the bass built up the frantic pace and the guitar added the intricate riffs anchoring Casey’s runaway narratives.

"Don't Go To Anacita", "Windsor Hum", "A Private Understanding" and "Here Is The Thing" were few more examples of excellence from the new record, while "Come And See", "Dope Cloud" and the one-two punch of "Why Does It Shake?" and "Scum, Rise!" of the encore stood out from the older material.

Protomartyr, live @ Strom (April 21, 2018)

INVSN, live @ Strom (April 21, 2018)

As an added bonus for us, the band that opened Protomartyr’s Munich gig was INVSN, another fine band led by Dennis Lyxzén who we know best as the lead singer of Refused and The (International) Noise Conspiracy.

The upbeat post-punk sound of INVSN (pronounced "Invasion") is closer to that of The (International) Noise Conspiracy (with added '80s new wave influences), than to the seismic punk of Refused, but the rebellious attitude and explosive performance of their charismatic leader remains the same in whatever band he is playing, always giving a great show and encouraging crowd participation.

INVSN presented songs from their latest album "The Beautiful Stories" and new EP "Forever Rejected", with "Immer Zu" from the album and the title track of the EP being the two most memorable songs of their set, while for the encore they played the anthemic "Down in the Shadows" from their self-titled 2014 LP.

Check out below "A Private Understanding" and "Windsor Hum" from Protomartyr's set and INVSN in "Forever Rejected" and "Immer Zu":

Protomartyr - A Private Understanding, live @ Strom (Munich, April 21, 2018)

Protomartyr - Windsor Hum, live @ Strom (Munich, April 21, 2018)

INVSN - Forever Rejected, live @ Strom (Munich, April 21, 2018)

INVSN - Immer Zu, live @ Strom (Munich, April 21, 2018)

Edit this setlist | More Protomartyr setlists

Edit this setlist | More INVSN setlists