Converge, Jake Bugg, Mumford & Sons and more
The Gooch Palms — Introverted Extroverts (Summer Camp Records)
This album is more than just "a post-Ramones pastiche"; it's "pop-punk as performance art: inimitable, iconoclastic, tongue-in-cheek and fun as hell". Introverted Extroverts "sparkles with hooks and licks; every song sounds like a new anthem for revellers both too drunk and not yet drunk enough to call it a night". We gave it four stars and Album Of The Week.
Bob Evans — Car Boot Sale (EMI)
Mitchell has left his punk roots in the dust for "a cosy campervan of domesticated folk-pop choonery". Songs like Ron Sexsmith and Happiness are in Ben Lee territory but Matterfact adds "some crunch to remind of his snotty punk history". He's a "family man/tour-bus troubadour" on this record and he's "standing ten foot tall and truly on his own two feet". We gave it three stars.
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case/lang/veirs — case/lang/veirs (Anti-/Warner)
The combination of Neko Case, k.d. lang and Laura Veirs, the three "awesome ladies" deliver songs that "wind through wooded paths, up and down hills, and along the open roads of California and beyond". Each lady "steps into the spotlight" on songs like Honey And Smoke and Song For Judee, but they fall short when they "play it a bit too restrained". We gave it three-and-a-half stars.
Alice Jemima — Liquorice (Sunday Best/[PIAS] Australia)
Avion Roe — In Separation (Epitaph/Warner)
Brightly — One For Sorrow, Two For Joy (Label Pink)
Converge — You Fail Me — Redux (Epitaph/Warner)
Gojira — Magma (Roadrunner/Warner)
Gonzo Jones — Misty Dreams (Good Manners)
Hollie Smith — Water Or Gold (Independent)
Jake Bugg — On My One (Virgin/EMI)
Jambinai — A Hermitage (Bella Union/[PIAS] Australia)
Jon Pardi — California Sunrise (EMI)
Justin Yap Band — Let Love (Independent)
Laura Mvula — The Dreaming Room (Sony)
Let's Eat Grandma — I, Gemini (Transgressive Records/[PIAS] Records)
M. Craft — Blood Moon (Spunk)
Margaret Glaspy — Emotions And Math (ATO/[PIAS] Australia)
Meredith — Nostalgia (Independent)
Mitski — Puberty 2 (Dead Oceans/Inertia)
Mumford & Sons — Johannesburg (Dew Process/Universal)
Nails — You Will Never Be One Of Us (Nuclear Blast)
Plutonic Lab — Deep Above The Noise (Wax Museum Records)
Red Hot Chili Peppers — The Getaway (Warner)
Soren Juul — This Moment (4AD/Remote Control)
Swans — The Glowing Man (Mute/Create Control)
Verticoli — Positions (Firestarted Distribution)
vhs dream — Departure (Independent)
Weathered — Lunar (MGM)
With Confidence — Better Weather (Hopeless Records/Unified)