Music Releases 05-13-22

Debut Album Solidifies Mallrat's Reputation as a Master of Clever, Timeless Pop

Available On Limited Edition [COLOR] Vinyl + CD Mallrat's prized pop songwriting has become a beacon the music industry eagerly follows, and on her debut album Butterfly Blue, she embodies the spirit of it's titular creature - but without the delicacy that keeps you at a distance. Over a dozen clever and open-hearted tracks, Mallrat - aka Grace Shaw - draws you in close and shows you the world through her wide, hopeful eyes.

A collaboration between Mike Patton (Faith No More, Mr. Bungle, Fantomas) and The Dillinger Escape Plan, this four song EP is a wildly progressive amalgam of musical styles that combines the feral intensity of hardcore, the technical precision of metal, mind-boggling tempo changes and sonic textures usually associated only with experimental electronic music. Irony Is A Dead Scene pushes the limits of speed, composition and complexity. Perhaps the most extraordinary track is a cover of Aphex Twin’s “Come To Daddy” which brilliantly and significantly serves to blur the distinction between “electronic” and “live” music. Reissued on vinyl to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the original release. 

Record-breaking, award-winning, GRAMMY-nominated RAMMSTEIN – one of rock’s most individual and successful names – release a special, limited edition 7" vinyl of their single "Zick Zack" and "Zick Zack (RMX by Boys Noize)."

TOMORROW X TOGETHER (aka TXT) is back with a brand new release. minisode 2: Thursday’s Child is available in 3 versions: HATE, END & MESS. All versions include a CD, 64-page Photo Book, Lyric Card Set w/Envelope, Stickers (6 pieces), Logo Paper Toy Set, Poster, Post Card (random 1 of 5 of each version), Lenticular Card (random 1 of 5 of each version) and Photo Card (random 1 of 5 of each version). Box dimensions: 150 x 210 x 22 (mm).

White Vinyl. Set for release on May 13th via Communion Records, the album sees the much-loved folk-rock duo - made up of Andrew Davie and Kevin Jones - once again team up with producer Ian Grimble on what is one of their most personal records to date.Davie says: "Blue Hours is a kind of imaginary space you get into at night, a place where you process difficult things or where you try to figure everything out." Themes on the album include both self-reflection and mental health after both struggled with the latter in recent years. "It's the main over-arching theme with this record," Davie explains. The group, who have worked with mental health charity CALM (Campaign Against Living Miserably) previously added: "It probably speaks to our struggles and hopefully many other people's too. Men are not very good at talking. We're not really taught how to - men have no idea how to talk about this stuff, certainly to each other."The pair describe the conceptual blue hours headspace that gives the new album it's title as being "somewhere between a hotel, a mental health hospital, a bar that stays open later than anywhere else, a paradise, a dream, a nightmare and an endless sea of corridors and staircases leading you to rooms that represent memories - good, bad, happy or difficult." Despite the album's challenging themes, it's an album drenched in hope too. "We wanted this to be a celebration of music," Jones continues. "I think that informed some of the bolder decision making on this record. At a time when music was so distant, it felt important to make an album that sounded hopeful, celebratory, ambitious and beautiful in spite of the heavy subject matter in some of the songs." Jones adds: "It was almost like we needed to shout louder than before because we felt that there were more barriers between the audience and us. We needed something to transcend that."

Limited 180gm clear red colored vinyl LP pressing. Two decades into their venerable careers, Baltimore death metal savants Misery Index are back with their new record, Complete Control. Their seventh studio album and Century Media debut is a riff-driven assault that captures the tension of the modern condition and channels it into 9 songs of ripping end-times death metal. Spewing with Orwellian invective and razor-sharp songwriting, Complete Control is a much-needed hammer to the face; a wake-up call for the disaffected and dispossessed. The album was mixed by Will Putney (Fit For An Autopsy, Thy Art Is Murder, Body Count), mastered by Jens Bogren / Fascination Street studios (Kreator, Opeth, Arch Enemy) and features uncanny artwork by visual artist Matt Lombard.

Apollo’s long-awaited debut album IVORY brings him to another level in his career. Crossing genre lines as well as language barriers, the full-length showcases even greater musical diversity from the already boundless creator. Despite being at this pivotal moment in his career, Omar feels like he's just getting started. The artist who once called himself “just a kid from Indiana” is breaking new ground, abandoning all comfort zones, and never looking back.

This release marks the first vinyl reissue of the jazz classic by master conguero Mongo Santamaría.  First released in 1976, Sofrito combines jazz with Afro-Cuban grooves, funk and soul. From the simmering blues of “Spring Song” to the devastating bass line of “O Mi Shangó” to the rousing groove of the title track, this set exemplifies the heady ambition of ’70s Afro-fusion at its most soulful. This edition features lacquers cut by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio and is pressed on 180-gram vinyl.

The Euphoria Season 2 soundtrack will feature new music from the HBO original series, including Lana Del Rey’s song “Watercolor Eyes.”

Produced by Clint WalshPerformed by Josh Klinghoffer & Clint WalshSongs by Josh KlinghofferEric Avery - Bass on 3, 5Eric Gardner - Drums on 1, 3, 5, 7Vanessa Freebairn-Smith - Cello on 10Mixed by Michael CraverFight For The Soul mixed by Andrew Scheps & Michael CraverOffend & Can't Put The Bullet Back In The Gun mixed by Andrew SchepsRecorded by Michael Craver at Now Space, Eric Palmquist at Palmquist Studios, Clint Walsh at Scarboro Sound, and Kody Reiners at EastWest StudiosAdditional engineering by Eric GardnerMastered by John Webber at AIR Studios

Communion, the debut album by Sister Ray, is a raw, meticulously-crafted portrait of momentous, ordinary moments; experiences that define your past, and instruct how you move through the world. . The record is anchored by guitar melodies that bear an undercurrent of turmoil, and echoes with the wisdom of hard-won lessons. It’s a break-up album invested in exploring the motivations behind actions, rather than attempting moral judgment. Out May 13 via Royal Mountain Records.

Jesse Mac Cormack's at last beginning to see what his music is all about. His second studio album is piercing as a look, tender as a goodbye'a collection of electronic songs that lift and crash like waves upon a shore. After a recording process that was by turns nourishing and peaceful, lonely and anguished, the gifts of time, distance and therapy have allowed the Montreal songwriter to finally understand everything he wants to say.

"Whatever you go through, you're always going to be alone with what you're living," Mac Cormack says. This was a hard-won lesson. In the deepest depths of the Pandemic, with a relationship in its ending, the musician recalls finally making a decision: to move forward, to change, to really begin to see himself. SOLO is the sound of that transformation, recorded over the course of a year and a half, marked by its hardships but also its relief.

As on Now, Mac Cormack's acclaimed 2019 debut, he plays almost every instrument himself, surrounded by a soundtrack of one. Across 11 rippling tracks, the singer summons a sonic world that's razor-edged and intimate, influenced by the textured electronics of James Blake, Little Dragon, Caribou and SUUNS. Drum machines stutter under blooms of synths; curses float below swirls of loving sound. Mac Cormack has hidden so much discomfort inside an album that's warm and glimmering, like a storm cloud before its strike. Even now, long after the season's passed, there's lightning in the air.

Toronto-based Deanna Petcoff shaped her unique brand of beautiful and confessional indie rock through years of devotion to music, sharing the stage with Molly Burch, Tokyo Police Club, The Nude Party and many more. She excels with heart-on-her-sleeve, emotive lyricism that showcases her strength as a songwriter and vocalist. To Hell With You, I Love You is a reckoning with the loss of a relationship, documenting the aggressive highs and deeply emotional lows that come from falling out of love.

2022 release. This is Matt Andersen's ninth studio album, recorded in his home studio and highlighting his songwriting in an intimate setting. "Matt Andersen has drawn from the best roots music has to offer over his decades-long career: down and dirty blues, heart-wrenching soul, life-affirming gospel, and introspective singer-songwriter balladry. These sounds, textures, and influences are laid bare on House to House..." - No Depression.