I know you probably don’t want to listen to too much new music since you’re so busy wondering what comes next after that heart-stopping cliffhanger from the latest Euphoria episode, or maybe you are revisiting your old iPod to brush up on your tunes after the When We Were Young and Smokers Club lineups dropped. Trust me. These albums are worth it. Emo newcomers Anxious dropped their stellar debut, and Boris are still kicking after all these years. Come on, even Pedro the Lion released a surprise album this week. I think I’ve made my case. Sit back, relax and take a break from hating Nate Jacobs to enjoy some sweet tunes, courtesy of your buddies at Paste.
Anxious: Little Green House
Connecticut-based emo band Anxious have had a major few years, releasing a critically acclaimed string of EPs that they’ve now finally followed up with the release of their full-length debut album. Little Green House gives them even more space to experiment with the melodic, and often anthemic, take on post-hardcore that the band have become known for. Navigating between harsh, guitar-driven bangers and dream-pop-influenced tracks like closer “You When You’re Gone” with ease, the band still inject bittersweet lyricism and earnest performances into everything they do. The infectious combination of grit and heart solidifies Anxious’ spot as an up-and-coming band to follow. —Elise Soutar
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Boris: W
Boris never really stop making music, and the sludge pioneers have still found a way to reinvent themselves by trading the harsh extremes that have made them cult favorites, instead relying on ambience and negative space. W still retains their doomy heaviness, contrasting 2021’s NO to provide an answer to pain and violence with healing. —Jade Gomez
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Boy Harsher: The Runner (Original Soundtrack)
Boy Harsher, throughout their nearly decade-long career, have continued to bear the torch of darkwave with their expansive, cinematic take on their songwriting. Naturally, they used those talents to create an original horror film The Runner, which debuted on Shudder earlier this week. The accompanying soundtrack is strong enough to hold its own, although the film is a treat to watch. Ominous synths pay homage to greats such as John Carpenter, and sensual French house influences such as on “Machina” lay a sinister groundwork for the film’s unexpected twists and turns. Boy Harsher strike a perfect balance of accessibility without compromising the horror aura of The Runner. —Jade Gomez
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Che Noir: Food For Thought
On her latest project Food for Thought, Buffalo, New York-based emcee and producer Che Noir aims to serve up a feast for the mind. It’s another impressive addition to her ’90s East Coast hip-hop-inspired catalog, which has already boasted collaborations with the likes of Benny the Butcher, Black Thought and Apollo Brown. Ransom, 38 Spesh and 7xvethegenius contribute features and production to the gritty, high-concept 12-track (or is it course?) collection, including on the hardscrabble guitar loop of “Eat or Starve” and the lavish team-up of “Table for 3.” But there’s no stealing the show from Che Noir, whose formidable presence pairs well with her project’s throwback beats. —Scott Russell
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Kids On a Crime Spree: Fall In Love, Not In Line
Bay Area noise-pop trio Kids on a Crime Spree released their debut record We Love You So Bad in 2011, toeing the line between EP and album at just eight tracks. More than a decade later, singer/songwriter Mario Hernandez, guitarist Bill Evans and drummer Becky Barron have returned with their first proper full-length, Fall in Love Not in Line. Written and recorded in Hernandez’s Oakland home studio, the album’s analog textures lend it a sense of timeless intimacy and simplicity; meanwhile, the trio juggle ’60s vocal harmonies and fuzzed-out guitars with sunny ease, and not a track over three minutes. Kids on a Crime Spree’s comeback album is a noise-pop gem, and the ideal antidote to a dreary day. —Scott Russell
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Pedro the Lion: Havasu
If Pedro the Lion’s Phoenix had an air of wide-eyed, sometimes bemused nostalgia, the Seattle band’s latest album Havasu is more conflicted—and not just about the location. Pedro the Lion’s latest is really an album about starting to come of age. Bazan evokes the tumult of emotion that accompanies the middle school years, sometimes so well that it’s uncomfortable, as he chronicles the year or so he spent in Lake Havasu before his family moved again. He depicts the anxiety of being the new kid in school, the thrill of a first kiss, the longing to find his place and fit in—a quest made more complicated in Bazan’s case by a religious upbringing that left him in fear of eternal damnation. His lyrics here are unflinching throughout and feel honest to a fault, whether he’s taking too long to think of something cool to say to a new classmate on “Too Much,” or misreading all the signals from everyone and making a hash of things on “My Own Valentine.” —Eric R. Danton
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Silverbacks: Archive Material
You could be forgiven for having heard Fad, the 2020 full-length debut of Dublin quintet Silverbacks, and filing them away in your mind as “Irish post-punk band.” Dropping bands into such reductive buckets is a necessary evil of discovering, engaging with and evaluating new music—if you can’t boil a sound down into a distinct data point, putting it in the proper context becomes a much taller task. For their part, Silverbacks—brothers Daniel (vocals/guitar/percussion) and Kilian O’Kelly (vocals/guitar), Emma Hanlon (vocals/bass), Peadar Kearney (guitar) and drummer Gary Wickham (drums/percussion)—are unconcerned with how their band is defined, even if they may happen to disagree with it. It’s that disinterest in painting by numbers that defines Archive Material, their second album. The influences Silverbacks cite in the album’s press materials—Television, Neil Young, Weyes Blood, and Bradford Cox/Cate Le Bon collaboration Myths 004—serve as a concise summary of the give and take between the ‘70s New York rock ethos that Silverbacks first established on Fad, and the exploratory spirit that begins to bubble up on Archive Material. —Scott Russell
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Yard Act: The Overload
Yard Act certainly are a band of this moment, as it seems like there is a major-label feeding frenzy on bands of their same style and region, similar to the post-Nirvana grunge phenomenon. But listening to an album as overflowing with ideas as the aptly titled The Overload, you get the sense that vocalist James Smith and bassist Ryan Needham’s creative partnership is nothing but genuine and curious. When you listen to Smith’s lyrical placement on the funky screed against the brainless decline of post-Brexit England “Dead Horse,” his attention to—and not indifference to—the beat propels the band forward in a way similar to Jason Williamson of Sleaford Mods. He piles up rhymes like a flurry of jabs from a fighter punching above their weight class, or a hungry emcee trying to out-flow the odds stacked against them. —Pat King
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And don’t forget to check out … Annika Norlin: Mentor, Aoife O’Donovan: Age Of Apathy, Aurora: The Gods We Can Touch, Billy Talent: Crisis Of Faith, Comeback Kid: Heavy Steps, Greensky Bluegrass: Stress Dreams, Jake Xerxes Fussell: Good and Green Again, Kiefer Sutherland: Bloor Street, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard: Butterfly 3001, Onsloow: s/t, Palace: Shoals, Penny and Sparrow: Olly Olly, Years & Years: Night Call
